1. In an op-ed for the New York Times, actress Angelina Jolie writes about having preventive double mastectomy after finding out she had the BRCA1 gene mutation.

    In women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, the lifetime risk of breast cancer is increased about 55-85% and the lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is increased about 55% for BRCA1 and 30% for BRCA2. Testing is recommended for those with a strong family history of cancers such as ovarian and breast, especially if family members were diagnosed at an early age.

    The most effective way to reduce risk after finding one of these mutations is by doing surgery. Risk-reducing mastectomy reduces breast cancer risk in BRCA carriers by at least 95%. Risk-reducing bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy reduces breast cancer risk by 50% when done before menopause (breast cancers can “feed” on the hormones produced in the ovaries) and reduces ovarian/fallopian tube/peritoneal cancer risk by at least 80%.

    Studies suggest that less than half of women with BRCA mutations opt for mastectomy so Jolie’s article is a good way of bringing awareness to the situation.

     

     onclology  cancer  BRCA 

  2. We don’t live in the information age. That would be an insult to information, which, on some level, is supposed to inform. We live in the communication age. Ten billion fingers fumbling away, unautocorrecting e-mails, texts, and tweets; each one an opportunity to offend, alienate, aggrieve, all in public, and at light speed. The misinterpretation age.
    — Jonathan Nolan
     

     technology 

  3. I was very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices. I saw myself condemned to a future of nothing but Masterpieces.
    — Henri Matisse
     

     Henri Matisse  art 

  4. “Shadow over Boston” by Eric Drooker. The New Yorker’s cover for next week.

    “Shadow over Boston” by Eric Drooker. The New Yorker’s cover for next week.

     

     the new yorker 

  5. James D. Watson’s 85th birthday celebration #AACR. As someone responsible for one of the most important discoveries of mankind, he is refreshingly frank and unfiltered.

     

     medicine  science  dna 

  6. The Chemist

FDA, 1910

    The Chemist

    FDA, 1910

     

     FDA 

  7. Brain power.

    Brain power.

     

     medicine  art 

  8. A reputation is easily come by, especially in these days when the cult of celebrity is so pervasive—appear more than three times on television, even with egg on your face, even in handcuffs, and the goddess of fame is bound to print her mark upon your brow.
    — Novelist and playwright John Banville on being unimpressed with reputations. The astute observer follows the same logic.
     

     science 

  9. freshphotons:

Mocha Mouse.

Mocha Mouse is a genetically-altered mouse used as a model for the rare Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS). The mouse has poor balance due to the genetic defect causing inner degeneration and deafness by age 3-6 months.

    freshphotons:

    Mocha Mouse.

    Mocha Mouse is a genetically-altered mouse used as a model for the rare Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS). The mouse has poor balance due to the genetic defect causing inner degeneration and deafness by age 3-6 months.

     

     science 

  10. The Crystal Palace and American ingenuity

    imageA marvel in its own right, the Crystal Palace was a magnificent structure of iron and glass which served as the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London to showcase the greatest products from around the world. It was during this exhibition that the US gave the world a first glimpse of American technological ingenuity.

    While doing research this weekend for a presentation, I came across the exhibition’s catalog notes. It nicely captures (with a touch of sarcasm) how the US, in the years following the event, would manage to surpass the rest of the world in its technological capabilities by cutting through dogma and and focusing on the practical:

    The absence in the United States of those vast accumulations of wealth which favor the expenditure of large sums on articles of mere luxury, and the general distribution of means of procuring the more substantial conveniences of life, impart to the productions of American industry a character distinct from that of many other countries. The expenditure of months or years labor upon a single article, not to increase its intrinsic value, but solely to augment its cost or its estimation as an object of virtue is not common in the United States. On the contrary, both manual and mechanical labor are applied with direct reference to increasing the number or the quantity of articles suited to the wants of a whole people and adapted to promote the enjoyment of that moderate competency which prevails among them.

     

     crystal palace  technology