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Ok, waaay off topic, but we all want to see this succeed, and I have particularly strong personal reasons. I have experience with someone close to me going through innovative cancer treatments at Wake Forest and I tend to listen up when something hits the news from that facility.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week gave Dr Zheng Cui permission to inject special immune cells into 22 patients. These donors have cells that are super-strength (up to 50 times more effective in fighting cancer than others’.) But How, and Why?

Dr Cui, who presented his latest findings in Cambridge last week, extracted such cells from 100 people, including some with cancer. When the immune cells were mixed with cancer cells, those from different individuals demonstrated vastly varying abilities to fight the cancer. Those of the strongest participants killed close to 97 per cent of the cancer cells in 24 hours, while those of the weakest killed only two per cent.

Dr Cui was the one who identified granulocytes as the cells responsible for mouse cancer immunity, a dramatic step forward in cancer research, for which he received acclaim last year. He injected the cells from immune mice into ordinary mice, and found it was possible to give them protection from cancer, often for the rest of their lives.

MUST READ: Wake Forest School of Medicine has Published a Summary of Current Research that is easy to read, and it’s better to get it there than from me.

Also: See New Scientist, 20 Sept 07, Issue 2622 (subscription)

Watch the yellow arrow on this video which points out where a type of white blood cell called a granulocyte is killing cervical cancer cells.

The school supply list looked normal until I reached the line that said “100 #2 pencils” …that’s one-hundred.

What have we become? I saw this loaded-down 2-year-old kid at the zoo with diapers, wipes, water bottles, and lunch - while other kids are running care-free. Sometimes you should take the burden away and let them fly a bit. This would have been one of those times, in my opinion.

When I read the story in the Merc about the guy who forgot his baby in the car (the baby died,) I was reminded of the situation where the University of Irvine professor did the same thing a few years ago. This is really, really awful stuff.

….Like many, the Warschauers were a two-career family. Mark Warschauer is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, a leading expert in the field of technology and learning. Hirata is an award-winning political-science professor specializing on Japan and East Asia. The morning of Aug. 8, 2003, Mark Warschauer was tired and stressed out. His wife was trying to wean Mikey, and he’d gotten up at 3 a.m. trying to get the bright-eyed 10-month-old back to sleep. When he drove to work that morning, he was “on automatic.” Mikey had fallen asleep in the back, dozing quietly in his rear-facing car seat. Instead of going to day care, Warschauer went straight to campus, parked his car and went up to the office……

Not only is this sad, it’s scary as hell. Kind of “I-think-I-just-dozed-off-while-I-was-driving-scary.” It’s scary because this level of busy-ness can happen to many people. Many good people. We can all have a long night. Perhaps even do an all-nighter with a little one and then go to work dead on our feet, totally sleep deprived. We can forget things. Important things. THE most important things.

Today I saw the ChildMinder system on Gizmodo. Yes, it’s sad to need it. But it is needed. If my girls weren’t too old now, I’d have this.

BTW: You’ll see this standard on cars soon enough. Just watch.

July 9, 2007 - not a Blackberry in sight.

When you have fresh Kentucky Mud…..

Yes, that’s my daughter. We’ve no plans for Institut Villa Pierrefeu.