Scientists Warn Chemotherapy Could Spread Cancer, Trigger More Aggressive Tumors
July 12th, 2017Via: Free Thought Project:
Chemotherapy can increase aggressivity in cancer, causing malignant cells to migrate and triggering more dangerous tumors — thereby also increasing the disease’s fatality — researchers in the United States found.
Patients with breast cancer who opt for chemotherapy as treatment actually face a risk of metastasis, according to a new study, as Science reports,
“The blood vessels of patients receiving chemotherapy drugs have more ‘entry points’ through which cancer cells can get into the blood flow and disperse throughout the body, scientists report today in Science Translational Medicine. In mice with breast cancer, chemotherapy shrinks the primary tumor but boosts the number of cancer cells in the lungs and circulating the body.”
Although it appears chemo effectively shrinks primary tumors, the treatment ultimately triggers the spread of malignant cells, causing cancer to act aggressively and often, leading to the patient’s death.
“It is thought the toxic medication switches on a repair mechanism in the body which ultimately allows tumours to grow back stronger. It also increases the number of ‘doorways’ on blood vessels which allow cancer to spread throughout the body,” the Telegraph reports.
SolarEdge Launching First PV Inverter-Integrated Electric Vehicle Charger
July 11th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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There it is. Finally.
Sure, the freaks have been doing it with Arduino and duct tape for years, but it’s great to finally see a real product from a top manufacturer.
Via: SolarEdge PR:
At Intersolar North America, SolarEdge Technologies, Inc., a global leader in PV inverters, power optimizers, and module-level monitoring services, is unveiling the world’s first inverter-integrated electric vehicle (EV) charger. By supplementing grid power with PV power, SolarEdge’s Level 2 EV charger offers charging up to six times faster than a standard Level 1 charger with its innovative solar boost mode.
Tesla Starting to Build Charging Stations That Handle 40 Vehicles at Once
July 11th, 2017Via: Electrek:
Electrek has obtained the project plans of a new Supercharger station to be built in Kettleman City, California. It’s located along the highway 5 roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, where there are high concentrations of Tesla vehicles and therefore, one of the most popular routes for long distance travel.
Tesla secured the land for the project this week, which puts it on track to be among the first of the new type of large Supercharger station. There are several more at different phases of development.
This one in Kettleman City will feature 40 Supercharger stalls, which is double the number of chargers in Tesla’s current biggest stations and consequently, it should become the largest fast-charging station in the world.
Wind and Solar So Cheap the U.S. Will Meet Paris Commitments Even if Trump Withdraws
July 11th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Quartz:
Research analysts at Morgan Stanley believe that renewable energy like solar and wind power are hurtling towards a level of ubiquity where not even politics can hinder them. Renewable energy is simply becoming the cheapest option, fast. Basic economics, the analysts say, suggest that the US will exceed its commitments in the Paris agreement regardless of whether or not president Donald Trump withdraws, as he’s stated he will.
“We project that by 2020, renewables will be the cheapest form of new-power generation across the globe,” with the exception of a few countries in Southeast Asia, the Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report published Thursday.
“By our forecasts, in most cases favorable renewables economics rather than government policy will be the primary driver of changes to utilities’ carbon emissions levels,” they wrote. “For example, notwithstanding president Trump’s stated intention to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord, we expect the US to exceed the Paris commitment of a 26-28% reduction in its 2005-level carbon emissions by 2020.”
DARPA Wants Bidirectional Brain Implants, 1 Million Neuron Resolution a “Starting Point”
July 11th, 2017Via: IEEE:
DARPA is known for issuing big challenges. Still, the mission statement for its new Neural Engineering Systems Design program is a doozy: Make neural implants that can record high-fidelity signals from 1 million neurons.
Today’s best brain implants, like the experimental system that a paralyzed man used to control a robotic arm, record from just a few hundred neurons. Recording from 1 million neurons would provide a much richer signal that could be used to better control external devices such as wheelchairs, robots, and computer cursors.
What’s more, the DARPA program calls for the tech to be bidirectional; the implants must be able to not only record signals, but also to transmit computer-generated signals to the neurons. That feature would allow for neural prosthetics that provide blind people with visual information or deaf people with auditory info.
Today the agency announced the six research groups that have been awarded grants under the NESD program. In a press release, DARPA says that even the 1-million-neuron goal is just a starting point. “A million neurons represents a miniscule percentage of the 86 billion neurons in the human brain. Its deeper complexities are going to remain a mystery for some time to come,” says Phillip Alvelda, who launched the program in January. “But if we’re successful in delivering rich sensory signals directly to the brain, NESD will lay a broad foundation for new neurological therapies.”
China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs
July 11th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
China’s government has told telecommunications carriers to block individuals’ access to virtual private networks by Feb. 1, people familiar with the matter said, thereby shutting a major window to the global internet.
Beijing has ordered state-run telecommunications firms, which include China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to bar people from using VPNs, services that skirt censorship restrictions by routing web traffic abroad, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private government directives.
The clampdown will shutter one of the main ways in which people both local and foreign still manage to access the global, unfiltered web on a daily basis. China has one of the world’s most restrictive internet regimes, tightly policed by a coterie of government regulators intent on suppressing dissent to preserve social stability. In keeping with President Xi Jinping’s “cyber sovereignty” campaign, the government now appears to be cracking down on loopholes around the Great Firewall, a system that blocks information sources from Twitter and Facebook to news websites such as the New York Times and others.
Donald Trump Jr. Hires N.Y. Lawyer for Russia Probes
July 11th, 2017Via: Time:
Donald Trump Jr. has hired a lawyer to represent him in Russia-related investigations, his office and the lawyer said on Monday, as Republicans voiced concern about a meeting between the U.S. president’s son and a Russian.
Trump Jr. hired New York lawyer Alan Futerfas, who specializes in criminal defense.
Futerfas would not say when he was retained or whether he played any part in the statements Trump Jr. made over the weekend about a meeting with a Russian lawyer.
Trump Jr. met the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, in June 2016 during the presidential election campaign at Trump Tower in New York.
Trump ‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump ‘s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also attended, the New York Times said. It called the encounter the first confirmed private meeting of members of Donald Trump ‘s inner circle with a Russian national.
NZ: Solar Tax Stands
July 10th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Oh, just wait. They’re just getting started.
A little bird told me that odious legislation is coming with regard to energy storage here in New Zealand. The retail electricity cartel knows that solar + storage spells certain doom for them. Now, get this (I couldn’t make this up): The rumor is that residential energy storage based on lithium ion chemistries will require some sort of fire proof enclosure, increasing costs and red tape.
So, Greenpeace calling for the government to, “overhaul this diseased industry,” misses the point. The government and the “diseased industry” are as thick as thieves! They are working together to try to protect the retail electricity cartel and the GST revenue it generates.
Too much of NZ’s retirement Ponzi scheme has been strapped to the mast of the electricity cartel’s doomed business model. Rather than getting out in front of this technology and acknowledging that its ascendancy is a mathematical certainty, they are implementing absurd taxes and barriers to try to… stop the sun from shining.
Clean, green New Zealand, etc. etc. Yeah right.
Via: Radio New Zealand:
Greenpeace campaigner Kate Simcock said the High Court decision was disappointing as it allowed companies like Unison to continue penalising solar users.
“The fact that this ridiculous tax cannot be properly challenged shows that the electricity industry in New Zealand is not accountable to anyone,” she said.
“It’s morally repugnant that big electricity players are knowingly taking steps to slow the uptake of solar because they see it as a threat to their bottom line. It’s time for the government to overhaul this diseased industry.”
Working Past 70: Americans Can’t Seem to Retire
July 10th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
More and more Americans are spending their golden years on the job.
Almost 19 percent of people 65 or older were working at least part-time in the second quarter of 2017, according to the U.S. jobs report released on Friday. The age group’s employment/population ratio hasn’t been higher in 55 years, before American retirees won better health care and Social Security benefits starting in the late 1960s.
And the trend looks likely to continue.
VW: Auto Industry Needs 40 Giga Factories by 2025
July 10th, 2017Via: Automotive News Europe:
A massive shortage of lithium ion battery cells could plague the global car industry in the coming decade if capacity equivalent to 40 Tesla gigafactories is not added by 2025, according to estimates from Volkswagen Group.
Ulrich Eichhorn, head of r&d for the world’s largest carmaker, increased projections made just 13 months ago for his company’s needs in 2025. Eichhorn’s forecast is based on targets that a quarter of its group volume will come from the sale of electric vehicles by then.
“We will need more than 200 gigawatt-hours,” Eichhorn told reporters on June 30 during a presentation here at the group’s otherwise highly secretive proving ground a half hour drive north of Wolfsburg.
