Last Sunday saw this year’s Standard Chartered marathon run, and me, like every other year, promised to sign up and run for it. Then again, it’s 42km. You must be kidding. Serious. I’ll probably just get entangled by my hair 1/2 way through the run. Of course, I can get my head shaved, which I am thinking of doing tomorrow. Heh heh…

Most of the students did quite well this year but that’s about all I can say. Exam marks cannot be disclosed before it’s confirm, especially not in a blog! Haha… but the marks are pre-moderation and probably not a good gauge. There are many factors involved too and for all I know, all might da bao not do as well as expected.

I’m still writing my marking summary for this year. Hmm… so many things to write about; but here are some of the highlights:

• When giving an answer, it’s good to stick to the point. If you are unsure of any answer, try not to elaborate too much, because you’d expose all that you do not understand.
• When you are given something to answer, answer to the point too. This is because I have answers that goes around the point, but just not hitting the point. A little *palm-face* sometimes.
• If a question is given in parts, answer all the parts to the point. Again, some answers fly everywhere, and I have to flip through the entire manuscript to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Yup yup, that’s about all. This summary should be quite interesting to write. Since the exams are already, all you can do is pray. =P

Came across this article which talked on cancer cells. It’s interesting to know how people can now test how tactile a cell now is. Through this discovery, it is also possible to make drugs more target specific so that there will be less impact on normal cells.

The treacherous thing about cancer treatment is that they are usually not very target specific - pretty much like antibiotics and this will cause good cells to die off as a result. Sometimes, the good cells might also mutate and join in the cancerous path.

The thing about cancer is that the source of most types are usually difficult to trace, leading most people to attribute it to genetic variability. One common visualization is in the form of lung cancer.

Some people can smoke till their eyes are bloodshot and their nostrils look like darkened chimneys, yet they are still puffing their way while others, apparently after inhalation of second handed smoke was down with cancer. With such varied cases, it’s really hard to pinpoint the exact problem, and cancer research probably still has a long way to go.

This, however, does not lead to job stability, which I will touch on in an appropriate post. Let’s hope that this nano-scale discovery will not be a false positive.

PARIS - A nano-scale tool that distinguishes soft cancerous cells from stiffer normal ones could save lives by making it easier to diagnosis cancer, according to a study released on Sunday.

Using atomic force microscopes, a team of US scientists showed for the first time that the surface of living cancer cells were more than 70 per cent softer than their healthy counterparts.

This measurable difference in elasticity held true across lung, breast and pancreatic cancers, and could provide a powerful means of detecting malignant cells that might otherwise escape notice, said the study, published in the British journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Currently, pathologists examine surgically-removed tissue by placing stained, thinly-sliced sections on a glass slide and looking at them under a microscope for signs of the disease.

Another type of test for differentiating cancerous and normal cells uses antibodies to pinpoint certain proteins.

‘However, this complex process of cancer diagnosis is not always 100 per cent accurate because normal cells can sometimes look like cancerous cells,’ said MIT scientist Subra Suresh in a commentary, also published in Nature.

The frequency of diagnostic error for patients who have lung cancer may be as high as 15 per cent due to sampling errors or faulty interpretation, earlier studies have shown.

Combining existing methods with the new technique, however, could help reduce this margin of error.

In experiments conducted at the University of California in Los Angeles, a team of researchers led by James Gimzewski removed body fluid from suspected cancer patients.

Using atomic force microscopes - a nanotechnology gadget measured in units 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair - they applied minute amounts of pressure on individual cells with a sharp probe attached to a mechanical arm.

The term ‘microscope’ is, in fact, a misnomer because the tool gages surface pressure rather than providing a magnified view.

Very soft malignant cells
The researchers discovered that malignant cells - verified as cancerous by other means - were four times as soft as normal tissue across all three types of cancer examined.

‘Our work shows that mechanical analysis can distinguish cancerous cells from normal ones even when they show similar shapes,’ Mr Gimzewski and his colleagues concluded.

When a normal cell becomes cancerous, its shape and its internal ’skeleton’ change. This transformation causes a loss of stiffness, but is not always visible.

The softness, they noted, makes it easier for malignant cells to invade and spread - or metastasise - to other parts of the body.

Further tests are needed to see whether the simultaneous existence of other diseases besides cancer in a patient might affect the mechanical properties of the cells and thus throw off the nano-scale measurements. — AFP

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 2nd December 2007

Apparently, the owner of the rottweilers lied about the dogs’ history of attacks, which involved her youngest son’s friend. His friend was attacked unprovoked by the rottweilers during one of his visit, but the matter wasn’t pursued due to the friendship between the children and the parents.

However, the victim has now gone public with the matter because of the owner’s claims that the dogs had never attacked.

The current call from AVA is for the owner to find homes for 2 of the dogs, as the maximum number of dogs that a landed place can keep is only 3. However, there is still a possibility that the dogs may be put down due to a history of unprovoked attack.

It’s sometimes sad to see this sort of endings because such attacks can be prevented as long as the owner is responsible. The dogs, as another animal lover said, can be trained as they are in their formative years and it’d really be a pity if they have to be put down because of the ignorance of the owner. I hope she’d learnt something from this.

The animals are acting upon their instincts. It’s up to the owner to do something about it.

THE owner of the five rottweilers that attacked a man’s terrier has until Wednesday to find new owners for two of the large-breed dogs or will have to put them down.

But the owner’s troubles are far from over.

It now appears that the dogs - four pups and their mother - had attacked a visitor to their home, contrary to her assertion that they had never bitten anyone before.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) stepped in after the five dogs had dashed out of the family’s Kembangan house and mauled a neighbour’s small-breed Jack Russell terrier last Monday.

Last Wednesday, AVA gave the rottweilers’ owner, Madam Satpal Kaur, 51, one week to find new homes for two of the dogs. The particulars of the new owners have to be given to AVA.

Generally, only three dogs may be kept in a landed property.

AVA’s head of animal welfare and control, Mr Madhavan Kannan, said that should she still be unable to control the remaining dogs, ‘AVA will not hesitate to further reduce the number of dogs kept’.

Yesterday, however new information about another attack was reported in The New Paper.

A friend of Madam Kaur’s youngest son said that on Oct 27, he was in the house and was set upon by the dogs.

His wounds required a hospital visit and 10 stitches on his right forearm and shoulder, as well as 21/2 weeks of medical leave.

His mother said that he had difficulty moving about due to his injuries.

The victim, who was not named, had not pursued the matter because of his friendship with Madam Kaur’s son.

But, upset by her claims that her dogs would never touch a human being, the family of the victim went public about the attack.

Although the victim did not wish to pursue the matter when contacted by the AVA, Mr Madhavan said yesterday it will ‘take into consideration that the dogs had bitten a family friend’ in determining any further actions.

The AVA has not concluded its investigation into the attack on the Jack Russell terrier.

The maximum penalty for not having a large dog like a rottweiler on a leash and muzzled in public places is a fine of $5,000 per dog, per offence.

The man who raised the alarm on the five rottweilers in Lengkong Tiga in August, semi-retired businessman Foo Seck Siong, 66, wants the authorities to act before yet another incident.

Mr Foo had first raised his concerns in August in The Straits Times Forum page about his neighbour’s five rottweilers, which he said were a ‘threat to the people in the neighbourhood’.

But the AVA replied then that there had been no previous reported incidents involving the dogs.

With the two incidents now, especially one being an unprovoked attack on a person, it is possible that one or more of the dogs could be put down even if Madam Kaur builds a second set of gates to the home to prevent the dogs from running out when the main gate is open.

As for the dogs, Mr Chris Ang, 38, a dog trainer with 10 years experience, told The Straits Times that the four younger dogs are in their formative years and can still be taught to overcome their aggression.

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 3rd December 2007