Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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A big step in the ever ongoing battle against breast cancer was recently announced. How is it that the cancerous cells can spread to attack the lungs? This was something that was never understood, and thus, fighting it proved exceptionally difficult. That’s no longer the case. The cancer sends out a signal or “relay” to the tissue that it plans to target, the lungs. This relay molecularly weakens the targeted tissue thus allowing the breast cancer cells to pass through the capillary walls and penetrate the lung.

Key to this study is a signaling molecule called TGF-beta. Early in cancer progression, TGF-beta acts as a tumor suppressor, inhibiting cancer growth. Later, it actually stimulates cancer progression and metastasis. Massague was interested in how tumors trigger this molecular dichotomy.

His team began by identifying a molecular signature, a pattern of gene expression of 153 genes that identifies tumors that are both expressing and responding to TGF-beta. They then applied that signature to hundreds of primary breast tumors. (source).

This might seem like such a small step forward to some, but this progress has been long sought after and I for one am glad to see that we are gaining ground in this fight at long last. After all, understanding the enemy and finding its weak points are the first steps in defeating it.

Or does the news seem exceptionally regurgitated here lately? I’ve been skimming the news feeds and I swear most of the headlines I could have sworn I saw last month or even last year. It seems to me that when there is no “sensational” news to break with, reporters decide to bust out with the old and tried articles. Spruce them up a bit and hit “publish” The general populace will never notice they’re reading garbage!

Found a survey on Dneero and the questions are supposedly taken from headlines:

See what I mean? The survey seems so general and random, and that’s what’s been in the news lately. Just a bunch of bs.

I’m sure one woman is quite pleased to hear that her husband, a pastor, was not found in the company of minors when police located him. Apparently he told his wife that he was going to Best Buy to get his computer fixed.

Uh huh, yeah he went to get something fixed alright, but it wasn’t his computer.

Police say a pastor who was reported missing from his home in western New York has been found at an Ohio strip club.

A police officer patrolling the K.C. Lounge parking lot Friday morning in the Dayton suburb of Riverside spotted out-of-state license plates on 46-year-old Craig Rhodenizer’s car.

The FBI and New York authorities had been searching for Rhodenizer, who disappeared Wednesday after telling his wife he was getting his computer fixed at Best Buy. He is the pastor of a church in Lyndonville, N.Y.

Detective Matt Sturgeon said Rhodenizer was disoriented when confronted by police and said he felt “emotionally guilty.” (source)

Am I the only one who is curious to know why the FBI were involved in this missing person case? Hundreds, thousands even, go missing every day but the FBI isn’t actively involved in their search, so I really have to wonder what got them involved in this.

But really, he was missing for three days and was found at a strip club in another state? Emotionally distraught? No doubt over the impending divorce proceedings.

In 1964 a riot broke out in the 7,000+ crowd that had filled the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, England after a member spat at the Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. Clearly this was not the band’s fault, they can hardly be held for the reactions of fans (and possibly non-fans) in an audience. But after the incident, the council of Blackpool enacted a ban on the Rolling Stones which forbade them from playing in Blackpool again. That ban has no been lifted:

After being banned for almost half-century from the English seaside resort, the Rolling Stones are free to perform there again, the local council said on Thursday. (source)

Please note, Peter Callow, the Blackpool council leader went on to say that, if the Rolling Stones would be willing to forgive them, they would forgive them. In other words, the ban is officially lifted Rolling Stones, but we want an apology and forgiveness from you first. Then we’ll officially give you one.

Never mind that the insult was dealt to the Stones first, and not Blackpool.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood - Tell them that their act of foolishness is forgiven, that incident is behind you now and then just continue on as you have been. Who needs Blackpool? Pft!

I’m pretty sure you’ve been seeing headlines similar to the one posted above for a couple of days now. Right? Well, in case you hadn’t heard, the inventor of the egg McMuffin passed away on Tuesday.

But can he really be considered the inventor? Are you an “inventor” because you added a dish to a franchise’s menu and slapped a brand name on an already existing dish? If that’s the case, then I hear by create SmezzaPizza. It looks just like a “pepperoni pizza” but it’s not. Why? Because I put a name to it. BUWAHAHAHA!!

So now when I die, the headlines have to read “Inventor of SmezzaPizza” dies at ##”. Isn’t that how it works?

Seriously, how can this guy be the “inventor” when breakfast sandwiches had been around since he was a kid? Hell, the man might have eaten them as a kid as well. Grab a biscuit, throw some egg, sausage (or ham), and cheese on it and you’re good to go. I have family members older than he is that ate those before he “invented” them. In the article that I linked to, two people noted that McDonald’s was already serving these “egg McMuffins” before he could have possibly “invented” them.