“We don’t know what new discoveries lie ahead, but this is the very reason we must go.” The deep, stately voice of Peter Cullen, famous voice actor for Optimus Prime in the Transformers film series, speaks these bold words at the end of a new promotional film released by NASA. It definitely adds a timbre of pure, unadulterated awesomeness to the video, which we have linked above.
Beyond that, what else really must be said? I think we’ll just let Cullen do the talking…
For many, Iowa is heating up to be a prime indicator of how the political field is about to turn in 2012; but for one researcher, there is another fascinating story involving heat that may lend itself to rethinking the intelligence of some of our cousins in the animal kingdom.
Every year, we are able to look back on the last twelve months or so with certain wonder with regard to some of the items that captivated minds everywhere and became newsworthy. Many are the instances where such stories involve our animal kindred, and the amazing feats they manage to accomplish that sometimes leave us thinking, “gee, maybe we aren’t all that different, after all.” Such was the case for me, when I first observedphotos of Kanzi, a bonobo from the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, who has been in the care of Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh for a number of years.
There are many striking things that bonobos and chimpanzees have managed to learn to do over the years, ranging from swimming to the use of tools. Therefore, it was particularly “striking” (and you’ll have to pardon the intentional pun here), when Savage-Rumbaugh began to observe Kanzi striking matches, lighting fires, and cooking food in a frying pan!
At his recent speech for TEDx in Brussels, physicist and ufologist Jacques Vallee argued that, in order to advance, we must break ourselves free of our standard models of physics, and learn to think beyond our present notions of dimensions, time, etc.
Kudos, Dr. Vallee… this is precisely the kind of forward-thinking we need. And yet, somewhat remarkably, there are actually people out there who make remarks along the lines of, “there may be strange aspects about our universe that have yet to be discovered or understood fully.” No, really? I mean, come on… surely there aren’t still discoveries to be made anymore out there. By now, everyone should know that the religion of science (like most other religious institutions) is virtually already complete. We’re not looking for ground-shaking new truths anymore… we’re just looking for confirmation of the old ones.
Yeah, right. Over the last few months alone, the CERN researchers in Geneva have not only claimed that they may have observed neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light, but now they claim they may have even spotted evidence of an elusive particle known as the Higgs Boson, further shaking the accepted foundations of our concept of how the universe works.
Cancer is among the leading afflictions recognized for causing death worldwide, despite an overall drop in cancer-related deaths reported by the National Cancer Institute this year. The disease results from particular varieties of cells that grow and divide more quickly than others within the body, becoming malignant in the event that naturally protective “killer” cells fail to destroy them before their growth becomes untenable.
Typically, there are molecules present in healthy individuals that aid in the necessary interactions between two key players within the body: antigens and lymphocytes. In the event that such molecules are lacking in numbers, these naturally protective processes can falter, resulting in cancer cells spreading more quickly throughout portions of the body.
Part of what allows cancer cells to proliferate is the fact that they utilize metabolic changes to process oxygen to their benefit. However, since 2007, lab studies have found that a low-cost substance called Dichloroacetic acid (DCA) works effectively toward restoring the original metabolic processes, and thus promoting the self-destruction of cancer cells. Though it’s attractive cost (estimated at being about $2 a dose) should, in theory, have made it widely available as a cancer treatment, the fact that no patent has been owned on the drug–thus helping ensure it’s profitability in the pharmaceutical market–has prevented it’s use from becoming widespread. However, this minor economic setback may be about to change…
