Simple urine test detects cervical cancer virus

Simple urine test detects cervical cancer virus

• 23:30 16 September 2014 by Linda Geddes
• For similar stories, visit the Cancer Topic Guide

Dread going for a smear test? A simple urine test can pick up the human papilloma virus (HPV) that causes cervical cancer. Though it's not as accurate as sampling viral DNA from the cervix itself, the test might benefit women who are too busy or scared to have a cervical swab taken, or who live in developing countries where the infrastructure for conventional smear tests is less developed.

Traditional cytology-based smear tests involve using a speculum to hold the vagina open, while a small brush is used to collect cells from the cervix, which are then assessed for pre-cancerous changes using a microscope. "The advantage is that if you have an abnormal result, there is a reasonable chance that you have an underlying abnormality," says Henry Kitchener at the Institute of Cancer Sciences in Manchester, UK, who was not involved in the current study.

More recently, DNA tests have been developed that test for HPV directly – again by taking a sample from the cervix. This is more sensitive than a conventional smear test meaning that those who test negative are very unlikely to develop cervical cancer in the near future. But those who test positive don't necessarily have cancer – their cervix may be perfectly healthy – so a positive DNA test needs to be followed up with a physical examination.

Cancer screening

DNA testing for HPV is being piloted in the UK, and was recently incorporated into US guidelines for cervical cancer screening .

Neha Pathak at Barts and The London School of Medicine and her colleagues combined the results of 14 clinical trials of urine testing and compared the results against the new cervical DNA test. Urine tests could correctly identify 87 per cent of HPV positive samples, and 94 per cent of negative samples.

"It suggests urine testing is definitely something worth investigating further," says Pathak.

Unfortunately, data doesn't exist that would allow urine testing to be compared with more traditional smear tests – something Pathak says should be investigated in any future trials.

HPV tests for all

However, cervical HPV DNA testing is already known to be more sensitive than microscope-based methods. "It may be that the urinary HPV test is as good as a cytology sample," says Kitchener.

Even so, urine-based HPV testing is unlikely to replace cervical HPV testing completely. "The actual test in itself isn't a better test," Kitchener adds. "But it is another way of obtaining results from the lower genital tract, and it may well be the way forward for women who don't otherwise engage with screening."

It could also be useful in developing countries where rates of cervical cancerare often far higher, and the infrastructure for screening and preventative treatment is lacking.

"We're not saying that this is a direct replacement for cervical testing, but it is something that could be rolled out a little more easily," Pathak says.

Journal reference: BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.g5264

Figuring out the mysteries of the universe, one galaxy collision at a time. (NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI)

What Is the Universe? Real Physics Has Some Mind-Bending Answers

Science says the universe could be a hologram, a computer program, a black hole or a bubble—and there are ways to check

By Victoria Jaggard

SMITHSONIAN.COM 

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 12:25PM

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The questions are as big as the universe and (almost) as old as time: Where did I come from, and why am I here? That may sound like a query for a philosopher, but if you crave a more scientific response, try asking a cosmologist.

This branch of physics is hard at work trying to decode the nature of reality by matching mathematical theories with a bevy of evidence. Today most cosmologists think that the universe was created during the big bang about 13.8 billion years ago, and it is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. The cosmos is woven into a fabric we call space-time, which is embroidered with a cosmic web of brilliant galaxies and invisible dark matter.

IBM and Mayo Clinic are applying game-show champ Watson's smarts to matching patients with the best clinical trials

IBM and Mayo Clinic are applying game-show champ Watson's smarts to matching patients with the best clinical trials.(© Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press/Corbis)

IBM's Watson Will Match Cancer Patients With Trials at Mayo Clinic

By pairing patients with trials in seconds, the supercomputer will help speed the pace of medical innovation

By Corinne Iozzio

SMITHSONIAN.COM SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

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In 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer bested 74-time "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings. The machine, which had taken four years to develop, was a first of its kind: a computer that could understand complex questions, answer them and learn from its mistakes.

But for IBM, developing a cognitive computer—one that can process and contextualize natural language—wasn’t just about winning a game show. From the beginning, the project has been about solving information-intensive puzzles and making everything from banking and real estate to employment and medicine function more efficiently.

This week, IBM announced a partnership with the Mayo Clinic that will use Watson’s smarts to match Mayo patients with clinical trials for which they might be eligible, an initiative that will save time and, hopefully, lives.

At any given time, the Mayo Clinic has about 8,000 active clinical trials, and there are an additional 170,000 worldwide. Typically clinicians have to sift through medical records by hand to find matches for studies, a process that can take weeks and might not yield any viable options. “It’s a data- and time-intensive process and a very complicated question,” says Sean Hogan, vice president of IBM Healthcare. Watson, by comparison, can do the same work in a matter of seconds. “Cancer,” he explains, as an example, “is a race against time.”

Finding subjects for trials will also be a boon for research. As of now, only 5 percent of Mayo patients take part in clinical trials; the Watson clinical trial match program could double that number. Higher enrollment could allow researchers to complete their studies faster, improve the overall quality of their results and make refinements to their methods more quickly.

Initially, the program will focus on breast, colon and lung cancer, but it should eventually expand to include all types of cancer and other diseases. “Clinical trials for cancer are only 25 percent of our trials,” explains Nicholas LaRusso, a Mayo gastroenterologist and the project lead for the Watson collaboration. “Assuming [Watson] is helpful and beneficial, it could extend to all of our clinical trials.”

Mayo’s primary contribution will be Watson’s medical education. The clinic will provide the computer with the data it needs to build its knowledge base—lists of active trials and their criteria and current medical research. Clinicians will then query the system by entering patient records, diagnoses and histories to search for a match.

Because of Watson’s ability to build knowledge cumulatively, LaRusso says, it will get better and better at matching patients with trials over time. “In its relatively immature state, it may tell me that there are 26 trials that this patient is eligible for, but eventually it might be able to narrow it down to three or [even] say ‘this one is the best trial,’” he says.

The project is still in an early proof-of-concept phase, in which both teams are looking for feedback that will make Watson’s recommendations as reliable as possible. LaRusso explains that part of the process is logging how readily clinicians agree with and implement Watson’s suggestions.

Eventually, Watson should even be able to prompt doctors for information that would help it make the best clinical trial recommendation. For instance, Watson might ask the doctor for the results of a specific genomic test. “It’s not only identifying trials, but it’s expressing an opinion about what would be the best trials for a patient,” LaRusso explains. 

At the New York Genome Center, Watson will be used to make sense of vast amounts of genetic sequencing data and medical information to identify personalized treatments for cancer patients. (Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM)

LaRusso hopes to have Watson online for the clinical trial match program by the end of March 2015. Meanwhile, the team is already thinking about Watson’s next task at Mayo, what LaRusso calls the Clinical Efficiency and Effectiveness Project. For that effort, Watson will synthesize and analyze incoming patient records—histories, prior treatment, past diagnoses—into organized, cohesive histories. “This would be especially helpful for [patients] with diagnostic problems, people that have been seeing multiple doctors and have had multiple tests and prior opinions,” LaRusso says.

The Mayo Clinic isn’t the only institution to see Watson’s potential for crunching complicated medical problems, as several other initiatives are underway across the country. In March, the New York Genome Center announced that it would be training Watson to analyze patient genomes in order to create customized medicine for cancer patients. A partnership with the Cleveland Clinic has borne diagnostic tools that analyze electronic medical records and offer reasoned conclusions and recommendations. Not to mention, the computer has digested all of PubMed and MedLine, two mega research databases, and patient records from at least one major institution, New York City's Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Yet for LaRusso, any Watson-based medical advance isn’t just for the benefit of one institution. He expects the fruits of this collaboration to be utilized elsewhere in the medical community and to help the health care system deal with issues of rising costs and shrinking manpower.

“I think [this program] has the potential to substantially help in the transformation of health care,” he says.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/ibms-watson-will-match-cancer-patients-with-trials-at-mayo-clinic-180952671/#sayDOgDXjdG9LiM5.99
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Now you can work in your sleep

Now you can work in your sleep

Source

September 15, 2014

(Credit: iStock)

Parts of your brain continue to function when you’re sleeping, researchers at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the University of Cambridge have discovered.

They recorded the EEG (brain waves) of human participants while they were awake after they were instructed to classify spoken words as either animals or objects by pressing a button, using the right hand for animals and the left hand for objects.

Once the participants were asleep, the testing continued, but with an entirely new list of words to ensure that responses would require the extraction of word meaning rather than a simpler pairing between stimulus and response. The researchers’ observations of brain activity showed that the participants continued to respond accurately to the words (although more slowly) as they slept.

The study also extends earlier work on subliminal processing by showing that speech processing and other complex tasks “can be done not only without being aware of what you perceive, but [also] without being aware at all.” Sid Kouiderof Ecole Normale Supérieure suspects that such unconscious processing isn’t limited by the complexity of the task, but by whether it can be made automatic or not.

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27 Unfamiliar Beaches Will Leave You Amazed!

September 15, 2014 by Katharine J. Tobal. No Comments.

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For most people, beaches are cool tourist destinations for spending free time and to forget about life in crowded cities for the day. But then there are these amazing unusual beaches.

Visiting these unusual beaches will not only give you calm and peace, but they will make you feel like you’re in different world! When you are in a singing beach, a glowing beach, a beach with rainbow-colored sand, of course, you are in a different world.

Here are the most wired beaches you’ll find on Earth. They are distinctive, not because of they’re still a way from most people to reach but because of their strange and amazing singularity.

1. Whitehaven Beach

Whitehaven Beach, which is located in Whitsunday Island, Australia. The sands on this beach are radiant white and consist of silica. This allows people to walk barefoot even on hot sunny days without feeling like their feet are getting really hot.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

2. White Sand Beach

Hyams Beach is located in New South Wales, Australia and is encircled by three radiantly white sand seashores. This amazing beach was mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records as having the beaches with the whitest sand in the world. People in Australia recommend it for visitors as well as themselves! If you’re in Canberra, it’s about a 3 hour drive from your place to reach the beach, but it’s really worth it!

Photo Credit: Panoramio

3. Star Sand Beach

Iriomote Island, where this beach is located, is a small island in Okinawa, Japan. Visitors are normally seen crouched over the sand, examining the curiously-shaped particles on their hands. Most of the beach is covered of exoskeletons of foraminiferans.

Foraminiferans are type of zooplankton, microscopic marine organisms, which believed to be fossil evidence dating back 550 million years ago. If you look closely, you might find some that are still living.

Photo Credit: Flickr, Photo Credit 2

4. Black Sand Beach

When basalt lava flows into the water it cools very fast, making the black sand found on this beach. This odd beach is located in Hawaii.

Photo Credit

5. Hidden Beach

In the Marieta Islands, about 20 nautical miles from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, lies a peaceful beach paradise hidden underneath a hole in the ground. It was created when the Mexican government, in the early 1900′s, made a bomb site in preparation for the First World War blowing up a very big hole in the canopy of the grotto. The beach is still unsullied due to the difficulty of getting to it and despite its story, we’re actually thankful – it’s marvelous beach!

Image Credits: Daily Mail, Miguel Naranjo

6. Rainbow Beach

They say: more than 74 different colors of sand are coloring this beach, just like a rainbow! The colors came as a result of years of erosion and iron oxidation dating back to the Ice Age. This amazing beach is located in South-eastern Queensland, Australia.

Photo Credit: Flickr

7. The Moeraki Boulders (Dragon Eggs) Beach

They call this beach “Dragon Eggs” or Moreaki Boulders beach because of the unique rock formations it has. The water has been washing away rocks for years but for these heavy spectacular rocks, the water has only helped shape them.

Image credits: Gerald Guerubin, Farkul J, arikairflight

8. Maho Beach

This beach’s location is adjacent to the Princess Juliana International Airport in Saint Martin, it’s almost easy enough to jump up and touch a flying airplane! Most people visit it in order to feel the extreme turbulence and power caused by the airplanes.

Images Credits: Benny Zheng,  Kent Miller

9. Bowling Ball Beach

The name of this beach comes from the spherical rocks scattered across the shore, in Schooner Gulch, Mendocino County, California, USA. The rocks have formed by years of erosion.

Images Credit

10. Singing Beach

Before you start wondering about the name, it’s not about music! The frictions between the grains of sand in this beach are actually more of a creaky, squeaky kind than a melodic kind. But this is why it’s called “Singing Beach”. It’s located in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, USA and considered as one of the most popular beaches in the world.

Image Credit

11. Shell Beach

Shell Beach is in L’Haridon Bight, Shark Bay, Western Australia and is considered to be one of the only two beaches made entirely out of shells. The water here has high salinity. That’s why numerous cockles grow quickly along 7 to 10 meter of seashore with no appearance of its natural predators because they don’t have the ability to live in such conditions.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

12. Grass Beach

Here it’s not sand, it’s all grass! This unique beach located in Kourou, French Guiana.

Image Credits: Arria Belli

13. Beach of the Cathedrals

This beach created by nature itself, is located in Playa de las cathedral’s/Praia de Augas Santas, Ribadeo, Spain. The water ceaselessly pounds against the large rocks making a cathedral-like effect. It is only accessible during low tide.

Image Credit

14. Bioluminescent Beach

Due to its gathered phytoplankton (microscopic plants that are part of sea plankton), you will feel like you’re watching an ocean of stars when at this beach! It’s located in Maldives. The following image took by Taiwanese photographer Will Ho.

Image Credit: Daily Mail

15. Purple Sand Beach (Pfeiffer Beach)

It’s located in Big Sur, California, USA. The purple color of its sand comes from its dominant mineral quartz combined with manganese garnet deposits found in the surrounding rocks, which makes it a very attractive tourist destination.

Image Credit: Panoramio

16. Hot Water Beach

In East coast of the Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand, you can make your own DIY personal spa! But you need to check out the website to know more about this geothermal beach and the heat that comes with it.

Image Credit

17. A Sandy Beach in the Middle of a Meadow

This beach is located in Playa De Gulpiyuri, Llanes, Spain. It’s small but it linked to underground waterways that leads to the Atlantic. Perfect for a private picnic.

Images Credit

18. Scala Dei Turchi

Through years of wave movement, a white rock of random stairs created itself naturally in southern Sicily, Realmonte, Italy.

Image Credit 1 Image Credit 2,3

19. Tunnel Beach

Visitors have to pass through a long creepy tunnel to get to this beach in Dunedin, New Zealand. It includes pretty sandstone cliffs, rock arches, caves, and other stunning rock formations against the backdrop of the impressive Pacific Ocean.

Image Credit

20. Green Sand Beach

The bright green sand is created by the mineral olivine. This beach, called “Papakolea Beach”, or “Mahana Beach” is located in South Point, Ka’u, Hawaii and is one of 4 other beaches in the world with bright green sand.

Image Credit

21. Vik Beach (Black Sand Beach)

Another black sand beach, this beach is one of the ten most beautiful non-tropical beaches on Earth, according to American journal Islands Magazine in 1991. In fact, most of the beaches in Iceland are covered with black sand due to the nearby volcanoes.

Image Credit

22. Pig Beach

Wild pigs can be seen lounging about and swimming in the clear waters around the big major cay island in the Bahamas. How many pigs are around and where they came from is unknown, but it adds something interesting for visitors.

Image Credit

23. Giants Causeway Beach

This beach located in Ireland is the result of an old volcanic eruption. You can tell by the pictures why this beach is so unique and beautiful.

Image credits: Michael, Stefan Klopp

24. Schoolhouse Beach

This beach is covered with smooth limestone rocks that nicely massage one’s feet while walking. This beach is located in Washington Island, Wisconsin, USA.

Image Credit: Panoramio

25. Cave Beach

It’s just like a place for hiding! This amazing cave-like beach is located in Algarve, Portugal.

Image Credits: Bruno Carlos

26. Round Pebble Beach

You may find that the rocks in this beach are similar to the ones in Schoolhouse Beach. This beach is also covered with a large number of smooth round pebbles instead of sand. The waves gathered the smooth rocks in from the sea.

Image Credit

27. Glass Beach

The Glass Beach in Hanapepe, Kauai, Hawaii, is covered with millions of very small fragments of glass which came from years of discarded glass washed up on shore. There are other beaches like this one, like Fort Bragg andBenicia, which are both in California.

Image Credit: Wikimedia