All posts tagged: Experimental

Experimental pill promises new hope for deadly pancreatic cancer : NPR

Experimental pill promises new hope for deadly pancreatic cancer : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

This undated microscope image from USC via the NIH shows pancreatic cancer cells, nuclei in blue, growing as a sphere encased in membranes, red. Min Yu/AP/USC via NIH hide caption toggle caption Min Yu/AP/USC via NIH WASHINGTON — A novel pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported Sunday, raising hopes of long-needed better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer. “While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study. The drug is called daraxonrasib and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases — a target that had eluded treatment for decades. The daily pills nearly doubled survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine …

Experimental mRNA vaccine may protect against multiple Ebola viruses

Experimental mRNA vaccine may protect against multiple Ebola viruses

Published by skeptic

Health officials working to tackle Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 21 May Michel Lunanga/Getty Images A new mRNA vaccine has been developed that may provide long-term protection against the deadliest viruses in the Ebola family – including the Bundibugyo strain currently spreading in two African countries. Over 600 people are thought to have been infected with Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and there have been two confirmed cases in Uganda, leading the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Bundibugyo virus is a member of a group of pathogens known as orthoebolaviruses, which also includes the most common form of Ebola – the Zaire virus – and Sudan virus. All three can cause severe disease in humans. Until now, Bundibugyo outbreaks have been rare compared with those of the Zaire strain, which infected over 28,000 people between 2014 and 2016. There are two approved vaccines for the Zaire virus, but none for the Bundibugyo or Sudan viruses. Now, Yanfeng …

Experimental war novel wins Pulitzer with unique writing style as Bess Wohl takes drama prize

Experimental war novel wins Pulitzer with unique writing style as Bess Wohl takes drama prize

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter The Pulitzer Prize for fiction has been awarded to Daniel Kraus, an author known for fantasy, horror, and young adult novels, for his World War I narrative, Angel Down, notably told in a single, continuous sentence. Bess Wohl’s Liberation, exploring 1970s feminist consciousness-raising groups, secured the drama prize. Kraus, 50, boasts a diverse career, including collaborations with filmmakers George Romero and Guillermo del Toro. The Pulitzer committee lauded Angel Down as “a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism, and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence.” From left, “Angel Down” by Daniel Kraus, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution” by Amanda Vail,” “There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America” by Brian Goldstone, “Things in Nature Merely Grow” by Yiyun Li, and “We the People: …

‘We did a seance for Beethoven, to see what he thought’: the playful, pioneering life of field-recording maestro Annea Lockwood | Experimental music

‘We did a seance for Beethoven, to see what he thought’: the playful, pioneering life of field-recording maestro Annea Lockwood | Experimental music

Published by Sam Flores

A broken upright piano, tilted like the sinking Titanic, stands part-buried in a garden at Glasgow’s Counterflows festival. Experimental composer Annea Lockwood swipes a hand across its exposed strings and beams at the metallic clang. “Great piano!” she says, inviting other musicians and the audience to make their own strange noises by scratching and tapping it with garden debris. It’s one of many pianos Lockwood, 86, has buried, burned or drowned since the 1960s, exploring their changing sounds as they are destroyed – though she says “transformed”. A pioneer of field recordings, her work has ranged from “sound maps” of entire rivers to music made with the peace walls demarcating areas of mid-Troubles Belfast. As she revisits two significant works at Counterflows and prepares a new release of 1975’s World Rhythms, she takes me through her radical career from the very start. Annea Lockwood in October 1968. In the background, a burning piano from which Lockwood is making a live recording. Photograph: C Maher/Getty Images In her hotel, she laughs as we watch a 1966 …

Victory with experimental line-up pleases Socceroos coach Popovic

Victory with experimental line-up pleases Socceroos coach Popovic

Published by Sam Flores

March 28 : Australia coach Tony Popovic said he plans to continue experimenting with his line-up ahead of the World Cup after the Socceroos ended a three-game losing streak with a 1-0 victory over Cameroon in Sydney on Friday. Jordy Bos scored the only goal five minutes from time when he slipped into the penalty area to steer the ball into the bottom corner. “Winning’s always important and there’s no greater feeling than that,” said Popovic. “When you can debut players and try players in different positions and still get the win, you’re getting the best of both worlds. “It doesn’t always go that way, with what we did in October and November but there’s a process and plan in why we are doing that and we’ve continued in this camp. “We got the win in the end so hopefully we get another one on Tuesday and that will be the plan, experiment with more players but wanting the win. That hasn’t changed.” Popovic’s starting line-up featured a mix of experienced performers and fringe players …

Watch NASA’s experimental supersonic jet land early after system warning

Watch NASA’s experimental supersonic jet land early after system warning

Published by skeptic

Nothing seemed amiss as NASA‘s experimental X-59 supersonic jet touched down after its second test in the air, smoothly coasting onto the runway.  But the sleek, needle-nosed airplane had completed only nine minutes in the air on Friday, March 20, before a cockpit warning light forced an early landing. That warning was separate from a caution light that occurred during an earlier takeoff attempt just before 10 a.m. P.T., said Cathy Bahm, project manager at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. The brief flight left from Edwards Air Force Base in California at 10:54 a.m. P.T. marked only the second time the aircraft had flown. While the team originally planned for about an hour, leaders stressed that even short flights provide new data for moving the project forward. You can watch the landing in the video below.  Bob Pearce, who heads NASA’s aeronautics research, said the team made the right call to cut the flight short on Friday. The agency expects to find and fix issues at this stage of an X‑plane, an aircraft the U.S. …

How experimental archaeologists are resurrecting our forgotten past

How experimental archaeologists are resurrecting our forgotten past

Published by Jenni Sidey

SAM KEAN: My name is Sam Kean. I am the author of several books and my latest book is “Dinner with King Tut.” How rogue archaeologists are recreating the sight, sounds, smells, and tastes of lost civilizations. Part 1. Bringing Ancient History to Life Chapter 1. Resurrecting Ancient Practices If you’re thinking of Indiana Jones, traditional archaeology is not that. It’s things buried in the ground that you have to dig up, put in context, and try to piece together the past. Brushing off little pot shards and bits of bone with toothbrushes. Day after day, hour after hour. Traditional archaeology is very good about what the past looked like. So they can tell you there was a wall here, there was a building over here. You get a good general sense of the landscape and probably the range of materials that an ancient civilization was using. But what I was lacking was all of the other senses. What did the past sound like? What did it taste like? What did it smell like? So you …

An experimental surgery is helping cancer survivors give birth

An experimental surgery is helping cancer survivors give birth

Published by skeptic

It seems to work! Last week, a team in Switzerland shared news that a baby boy had been born after his mother had the procedure. Baby Lucien was the fifth baby to be born after the surgery and the first in Europe, says Daniela Huber, the gyno-oncologist who performed the operation. Since then, at least three others have been born, adds Reitan Ribeiro, the surgeon who pioneered the procedure. They told me the details. Huber’s patient was 28 years old when a four-centimeter tumor was discovered in her rectum. Doctors at Sion Hospital in Switzerland, where Huber works, recommended a course of treatment that included multiple medications and radiotherapy—the use of beams of energy to shrink a tumor—before surgery to remove the tumor itself. This kind of radiation can kill tumor cells, but it can also damage other organs in the pelvis, says Huber. That includes the ovaries and uterus. People who undergo these treatments can opt to freeze their eggs beforehand, but the harm caused to the uterus will mean they’ll never be able to …

Martial Raysse Is Still as Productive and Restlessly Experimental as Ever

Martial Raysse Is Still as Productive and Restlessly Experimental as Ever

Published by Jenni Sidey

When you get to the chance to meet a giant of the art world, it’s an opportunity you don’t pass up. Martial Raysse, 89, is one of those giants. The reclusive artist seldom grants interviews, but he welcomed me into his home, just outside Bordeaux, shortly before the opening of his exhibition at Galerie Templon in Paris earlier this month. The exhibition marks the artist’s debut with the gallery, which is showing 30 of Raysse’s recent paintings and sculptures—narrowed down from more than 50 works when we spoke. Founder Daniel Templon, Raysse recalled, “sent me a handwritten letter at a time when I was looking for a place to show my latest large canvases. It really was that simple.” That matter-of-factness set the tone for our hours-long conversation about art, literature, and life. Related Articles In France, Raysse, one of the most influential—and most unclassifiable—figures in postwar French painting, needs little introduction. But the restlessly experimental artist’s latest work might come as a surprise to even those who have followed his work closely over the …

Experimental Films in the Program Lineup

Experimental Films in the Program Lineup

Published by Daniella Wilson

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) enjoys a reputation as a destination for those curious about and interested in discovering new and unusual cinematic voices. So it comes as no surprise that the 55th edition of the fest, running Jan. 29-Feb. 8, is again chock-full of envelope-pushing arthouse movies that sounds anywhere from offbeat to outright outlandish. Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director at IFFR, has promised “an array of titles that speak to our mission of audience discovery and championing filmmakers forging new paths in cinema.” Here is THR‘s look at a small selection of Rotterdam films that sound experimental, out there and different, to say the least. 58thDirector: Carl Joseph E. PapaIFFR section: HarbourSales/world rights holder: GMA Network Films, Inc. 58th Courtesy of IFFR After the 2009 Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines, most of the corpses of journalists and the wife of a progressive political candidate were found. Not so the 58th victim, a photojournalist nicknamed Bebot. His daughter Nenen has since fought to get his killing — by forces directed by an influential family allied with the then-government — officially …