It’s an inconvenient truth that after 50 years of concerted research and untold billions of dollars in funding every year, a cure for cancer remains elusive. Perhaps the problem sits with the conventional view of cancer. Henry H. Heng, a professor of molecular medicine at the Wayne State School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, suggests we need to see the bigger picture and even rethink our understanding of evolution. His Genome Architecture Theory is telling and provocative, which is why it’s attracting interest from an unlikely collaborator who sees progress in disruption.
It’s probably true that every person who has lost a loved one to cancer has wondered at some point why there isn’t a cure. It’s a fair point, given the tens of thousands of scientists who have spent endless hours and billions of dollars in cancer research every year for over 50 years.
Abstract: A radical rethink is necessary around the provision of palliative care.
In a world riven by intense religious protectionism, political disunion and cultural variance, it's hard to imagine a perception or opinion that is shared by all humans. But there is something: an aversion to pain and the fear of death. Yet this is the calling for those providing palliative care, a currently specialised area of medicine that, it seems, requires profound debate, if not for ourselves, then for the sake of our parents.
Palliative care is something of a mystery because its meaning is enwrapped in misinterpretation. For most laypersons familiar with the term it refers to that care given to those diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, mainly cancer, and who are at the end of their life. It is something provided by hospices and other organisations when doctors have declared there is nothing
Abstract: A branch of science believes bedtime reading increases the risk of breast cancer...
For a parent, there are few things more rewarding than the excitement shown by a child when reading them a bedtime story; but there's a branch of science that fears that such a critical parenting role may increase a child's risk of developing the most common cancer found in South African women.
Such a summation may not seem out of place in the unfortunately imbalanced rhetoric of poor health reporting typically found in tabloids. You can imagine the headline: "Mother Goose causes cancer!" But the reality is that those conducting research in the discipline of chronobiology - a relatively new branch of science concerned with the internal biological clocks of various living organisms - are concerned that using artificial light at night poses a risk of developing breast cancer.
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Abstract: Why everything gives you cancer...and also helps you live longer...
There can be few things guaranteed to put off a potential reader of an article more than the headline 'Everything gives you cancer', especially in a Sunday newspaper magazine where they're looking for something light, relaxing and entertaining to read. So let me rise to the challenge; besides something tells me you already have a sneaking suspicion where this story is heading.
One of the biggest challenges for science journalists such as myself - those who dabble at the craggy interface of science and society - is that every time we write something we have to win over an audience who may not necessarily be interested in science. We have to do so by writing wonderfully engaging copy and surreptitiously slipping in a little science. It's like wrapping a pill in bacon so