Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Chemotherapy is usually associated with a collection of side effects ranging from digestive problems to hair loss, but a study published this week in Human Reproduction demonstrated that female cancer patients may find they have something in common with much younger women in one specific area — their ovaries.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh examined donated ovarian tissue from fourteen female cancer patients, most of whom had Hodgkin lymphoma, and compared it to tissue from healthy women. They found the samples from women who had been treated with a specific chemotherapeutic regimen known as ABVD not only contained greater numbers of dormant ova — egg cells — than those from women treated with harsher regimens but also more than samples from healthy women. ABVD is named for combining several drugs known as adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine.

These reproductive cells were not merely more plentiful in ABVD patients. They also appeared immature, “new” in the words of lead researcher Evelyn Telfer. This challenges the conventional belief that girls are born with all the ova they will ever have and the numbers can only go down as the cells are either used up by the reproductive cycle or succumb to damage or natural aging. However, further research is needed to confirm this. The study covered relatively few patients by scientific standards, and David Albertini of the Center for Human Reproduction in New York has suggested the cells may not actually be freshly grown. Instead, they may have always been there and were merely rendered more detectable by ABVD treatment.

The ability to grow new egg cells may have significant implications for women in Western societies, many of whom postpone childbearing to establish careers, sometimes into their late thirties or forties. However, Telfer warns against making use of these findings too soon: “There’s so much we don’t know about the ovary. We have to be very cautious about jumping to clinical applications.”

The experiments had been discussed earlier this year at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Friday, February 10, 2006

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) will meet in Canberra today for its first meeting of 2006. Members of COAG are the Prime Minister, State Premiers, Australian Capital and Northern Territory Chief Ministers, and the President of the Australian Local Government Association. COAG is chaired by the Prime Minister.

On the agenda is a wide range of issues such as health, economic reform, regulation, and education.

The state leaders (all of whom are members of the Australian Labor Party), met last night to develop a strategy for dealing with John Howard, Australia’s Prime Minister.

Monday, July 7, 2008

The United States bridge that collapsed almost a year ago, spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is close to being reconstructed. The final sections of the northbound lanes of the new Interstate 35W St. Anthony Falls Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota were put in place on July 5. The final segment was raised with a barge-mounted crane from the Mississippi River below. A temporary bridge now connects the two segments.

The remaining seven-foot gap will be closed in several days with concrete which is poured in place. The segments for the southbound lanes will now be raised and connected. The segments were cast in a work area which was on the 35W roadbed and were then moved to Bohemian Flats, near the University of Minnesota West Bank campus. A crane places each segment on a barge for delivery upstream to the bridge site.

The bridge may be completed as early as September, well ahead of the scheduled opening date of December 24th.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 crashed 1,750km (1,100 miles) north-west of Rio de Janeiro killing all people onboard, on Friday September 29. National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) has confirmed that the crashed Brazilian airplane did crash into a smaller aircraft. Rescue workers and air force personnel are searching the wreckage for bodies

Saturday, June 18, 2005

The former CEO of Tyco International, Dennis Kozlowski, as well as CFO Mark Swartz are convicted of taking more than $600 million from the company. Charges include grand larceny, securities fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records.

The first trial ended in a mistrial after one juror received a threatening letter. Nancy Salomon says of the second trial that the “Defense was counting on the jury not reaching a verdict; they had used their challenges during the jury selection process to kick almost every potential juror who had a college degree, or had any business experience or Wall Street experience off the jury … they were hoping that this case was just going to be too confusing for the jury.” While the jury did take 11 days to arrive at their decision, they found Kozlowski and Swartz guilty on 22 of the 23 counts. To combat the aggressive jury selection strategy undertaken by the defense, the prosecution “basically gave the jury several credit hours worth of an MBA“, teaching them about following paper trails and detecting falsification of business records. It paid off during deliberation as the jury requested over 100 documents to review.

Kozlowski and Swartz directly stole approximately $150 million USD from Tyco and acquired $430 million more by inflating the company’s stock value and then secretly selling company shares. Bail was set at $10 million each. The two former executives face a minimum of eight years in prison, up to a maximum of 25 years. In addition, Kozlowski is accused of evading $1 million in sales taxes on six paintings that he bought in 2001 in a separate New York State case, and Swartz faces tax evasion charges in New Hampshire. If convicted in these cases as well, they would face up to 30 years in prison.