Rocket Booster: Let Private Sector Help NASA

After leading the way in the human exploration of space for nearly 50 years, the future of U.S. manned space flight is in question. The space shuttle makes its last flight next year. After that, NASA must rely on the Russians to put astronauts in space.

Unless the country looks to the private sector.

It may have to. A preliminary report from the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (it even has a Facebook page) says current budget restraints are jeopardizing all future manned space flights even as NASA develops the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will replace the shuttle. (Check out Wired.com’s post on the committee’s report on Wired Science.)

“Really, we’ve given the White House a dilemma,” Norm Augustine, the former Lockheed Martin CEO leading the panel, told PBS last week. “The space program we have today, the human space flight program, really isn’t executable with the money we have. So, either we have to do something with the current program that’s not going to be very successful, I’m afraid, or spend a nontrivial sum more than that to have something that’s really exciting and workable, and that’s the challenge the White House is going to have, is to sort that out.”

The Orion resembles the capsules of the Apollo era and would be launched atop an Ares I rocket. The program was intended to support the International Space Station and lunar missions. The Ares I and Orion won’t be ready until 2015 at the earliest, but some put the date several years beyond that.

So with manned space flight going on hiatus next year and some saying NASA needs a big infusion of cash to continue manned space flight, another option is emerging: NASA could use commercial ventures like SpaceX to deliver cargo and people to the space station.

NASA is bullish on commercial space ventures. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and his deputy, Lori Garver, support such ventures, and the tight budget has them seeking new ways to meet the agency’s goals, Jim Muncy, president of the PoliSpace consulting firm and co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, told Space.com in an excellent story on the issue.

But NASA contractor and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin says there’s too much risk associated with commercial space flight to make that a viable alternative to a government program.

Aviation Week reports that Lockheed Martin believes the commercial space programs could cost a lot more — in terms of time, money and safety — than a NASA program. “We know how difficult it is to transport to the station and we don’t want people to cut corners, and downstream having NASA pay the penalty of the time and cost of doing this,” John Stevens, of Lockheed Martin’s human spaceflight division, told Aviation Week.

That issue aside, Stevens wonders how the government is supposed to finance NASA and a contract with someone like SpaceX. “If we can’t afford one program, how can we afford two?” he asks.

Stevens is obviously referring to Elon Musk and his SpaceX venture. It is one of several firms trying to develop a delivery system to send people and cargo into space. Falcon 1 (shown above), made its first successful flight 11 months ago. In December, SpaceX won a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract to resupply the International Space Station. The company plans to demonstrate its docking capability next year. Stevens said it is important to wait and see if SpaceX can successfully deliver cargo before talking about delivering humans.

“We’re concerned these entrepreneurial firms are promising too much. If you don’t know what you don’t know, then it’s easy to say you can do this for so much,” Stevens said.

Stevens raises some valid points, but he’s also got a clear agenda — SpaceX and other firms like it are competitors and ultimately could do the job faster, cheaper and better than NASA. The Orion program is unlikely to make it to the moon any time soon based on current budgets projected in the future. The review committee says the goal of getting back to the moon by 2020 is currently about $30 billion short. And unless an extra $3 billion a year is put back in to the NASA manned space budget, the International Space Station is likely to be the only destination in space for the United States for the foreseeable future.

Naturally Musk, Burt Rutan and many others think otherwise. If they can do it, why shouldn’t they?

Reference:http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/commercial-space-programs/

Physicists Use Levitation To Solve a Sticky Problem

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Scottish physicists at prestigious St Andrews University have developed a method of making tiny objects levitate by reversing a mysterious force of nature. Normally when you hear that someone is using “the force” to levitate objects, you have to wonder if they’re a confused Star Wars fan trying to be a Jedi warrior. However, these scientists say they are only using their knowledge of real physics to create an incredible solution to a real engineering problem.

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin have worked out how to turn the normally ‘sticky’ quantum force of empty space from attraction to repulsion using a specially developed lens placed between two objects.

“In order to reduce friction in the nanoworld, turning nature’s stickiness into repulsion could be the ultimate remedy. Instead of sticking together, parts of micromachinery would levitate,” explained Professor Leonhardt.

While it is also theoretically possible for humans to levitate, scientists are a long way off from developing the kind of technology needed for levitation on a larger scale.

“At the moment, in practice it is only going to be possible for micro-objects with the current technology, since this quantum force is small and acts only at short ranges. For now, human levitation remains the subject of cartoons, fairytales and tales of the paranormal,” cautions Leonhardt.

For smaller parts, the levitation will occur using a phenomenon called the “Casimir force”, which was predicted by quantum physicists back in 1948. It wasn’t proven to exist until scientists were finally able to measure it ten years ago. Scientists are still struggling to fully understand it.

The force is caused by a little understood quirk of nature which seemingly enables particles to “pop into existence” from out of nowhere. This creates a force that pushes together two objects placed very close to each other. It can also be demonstrated by a gecko’s ability to stick to a surface with just one toe.

Other scientists are eagerly taking notice of this fascinating research. The Scottish pair’s theory is now being examined by a leading American scientist, who plans to put the ideas into practice.  Dr Frederico Capasso, of Harvard University in the United States, is currently also working on ways to manipulate the Casimir effect. Philbin said, “We’ve shown him our work and he’s very interested.”

The technique has the potential to revolutionize nanotechnology and the design of micro-machines. The scientists predict their discovery will ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate.

Because the Casimir force has little effect on everyday life—it is usually ignored. Nevertheless, it becomes an extremely important force when trying to develop tiny switches and micro-machines, since their components have a tendency to stick to each other.

Professor Leonhardt explains how controlling this force will revolutionize micro-engineering, “The Casimir force is the ultimate cause of friction in the nano-world, in particular in some micro-electromechanical systems. Micro or nano machines could run smoother and with less—or no friction at all—if one can manipulate the force.”

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Reference:http://www.dailygalaxy.com/

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Shuttle Is Carrying Destiny’s New Toilet

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By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer

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The grand drama of humankind’s conquest of space has featured as a recurring subplot the mystery of how people in zero gravity can possibly go to the bathroom. The latest twist in that narrative is about to take place high above Earth, where astronauts will deliver to the international space station a new toilet, officially known as the waste and hygiene compartment, plus a contraption that can recycle urine into drinkable water.

These and other upgrades were carried into orbit last night by the space shuttle Endeavour, carrying a crew of seven.

The new toilet will go into the American laboratory known as Destiny. The only toilet currently on the station is in the Russian lab. The second toilet, the wastewater recycling system, new sleeping quarters and a refrigerator are all part of what NASA is billing as “extreme home improvements” on the space station. The goal is to make the station habitable by as many as six astronauts at a time, double the current crew limit.

Human sweat, excess water from tooth brushing, and water extracted from the humid spaceship interior have long been reprocessed into something astronauts can consume. But urine has gone to waste, tossed overboard (or vented, as NASA puts it), an egregious inefficiency in the great desert of space.

The new water recovery system, housed in two racks the size of refrigerators, will save 743 gallons of water a year that would otherwise have to be launched into orbit at great expense. This will also help NASA plan for future missions to the moon, where astronauts might operate for prolonged periods with little chance of seeing a water delivery truck anytime soon.

Standing between the urine and the consumable end product are muscular apparatus that distill, filter, heat and chemically transmogrify the liquid. The instruments include a catalytic reactor, a gas separator, multi-filtration beds, a particulate filter, a reactor health sensor, a microbial check valve, a fluids control and pump assembly, and a pressure control and purge assembly. This removes almost all the organic molecules from the liquid.

“It’s safer than what you normally drink out of the tap,” said David Hand, an engineering professor at Michigan Technological University who helped develop the water recovery system.

“I’ve sipped the water. It tastes like water,” said Jennifer Morcone, a NASA spokesman. Still, she said, NASA understands that, even with the strong assurances of purity from engineers, astronauts might recoil from the urine-to-water alchemy. But in taste tests, the recycled urine passed muster.

“The one thing people note is a hint of iodine, a medicinal taste,” Morcone said. The iodine is used for microbial control. “As soon as the cap comes off and it breathes for a minute, it doesn’t smell like much at all,” she said.

The water created from the new recycling process will be brought back to Earth for testing before any astronauts get to drink it.

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Reference:http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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Underwater Museum Planned for Egypt’s Alexandria

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Andrew Bossone in Cairo

Cleopatra’s palace sank long ago into the Mediterranean, but visitors to Alexandria, Egypt, may eventually view the complex’s remnants via the world’s first underwater museum.  A site for the museum has been proposed near the New Library of Alexandria, where the famed queen of Egypt is believed to have sheltered herself with her lover Marc Antony before taking her own life.

In early September the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, announced it is funding a team to determine if such a museum would damage the submerged artifacts.

If built, the museum could display treasures and monuments of her palace, which once stood on an island in one of the largest human-made bays in the world but were submerged by earthquakes from the fourth century A.D. onward.

(Read related story: “Ancient Mediterranean Tsunami May Strike Again” [March 10, 2008].)

The bay is filled archaeological sunken treasures. In the 1990s archaeologist-divers found thousands of objects: 26 sphinxes, statues bearing gifts to the gods, blocks weighing up to 56 tons, and even Roman and Greek shipwrecks.

Sunken Treasure

The proposed museum could include pieces believed to be from the Pharos of Alexandria lighthouse, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.

Archaeologists have mapped more than 2,000 submerged objects in the area of the bay where they believe the lighthouse once stood.

“The wealth of this area is quite impressive,” said Naguib Amin, the site-management expert from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

“Sort of the whole ancient city of Alexandria is lying under the water, just meters away from the shore.”

Better Than a Movie

The proposed museum would be both inland and underwater. The dual nature is intended to create an experience like that of a traditional museum while also allowing visitors to witness artifacts in their submerged states.

“When you go to an archaeological site, you have an irreplaceable emotion. It’s not like going to see a movie,” said Paris-based Jacques Rougerie, the leader of the feasibility study.

“It’s like the astronaut who cannot share with other people what it is like to be in space.”

Rougerie has designed a building with four tall structures shaped like the sails of fellucas, the sailboats that have journeyed the Nile since ancient times. These glass sails represent the four points of a compass and are illuminated with blue light in Rougerie’s illustrations.

“Those four points will be like the lighthouse of Alexandria that illuminated the library and the world,” Rougerie said. “I want to do the same thing with this museum.”

The larger, inland museum will have underwater fiberglass tunnels to structures where visitors can view antiquities still lying on the seabed.

But the bay’s murky waters could obscure the views of submerged monuments. The builders of the museum will either have to clean the water or replace it entirely with an artificial lagoon.

“As it stands, we have an ingenious idea,” said Amin, the Supreme Council expert.

“Try to picture a glass tube. And you simply put it over the main monuments that we need to highlight. It’s almost like putting each of these monuments in this tube.”

Logistical Concerns

The proposed museum is planned to be underwater not only for aesthetic value but also because it follows the 2001 UNESCO convention for the preservation of underwater heritage.

The convention decided that submerged artifacts should ideally remain on the seabed out of respect for their historical context and, in some cases, because water actually preserves artifacts.

But building directly over submerged artifacts could damage them—just one of a number of logistical issues that a feasibility team of archaeologists, architects, engineers, economists, and bureaucrats will examine in the next two years.

If the feasibility study concludes that the museum can be built safely, planners are optimistic it could be constructed in three years. The cost of the museum, however, has not been determined, and funding has not yet been secured.

“Underwater construction costs much, much more and has many more technical problems, so the idea was to divide the museum in two so it could host the maximum amount of people,” Rougerie said.

In addition to cost concerns, the logistics of visitor safety are under investigation.

The structural integrity of the building, however, is considered only a minor problem because the Alexandria bay is only about 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) deep, architects will not face strong water pressure on the walls of the museum.

Once complete, Egyptian authorities hope, the museum will transform both Alexandria’s tourism industry and the city’s current landscape.

“It will not simply be a museum as such. It is part of a whole vision to revitalize the whole city and its heritage,” Amin said.

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Reference:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

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The healing power of water

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‘Drink at least two litres a day and you will soon see the difference – glowing skin, weight loss, less cellulite, better immunity and a huge boost to your energy levels’

Water is one of the most basic things on Earth and essential to good health, yet we thoughtlessly throw away gallons every day. Used properly, water can revolutionise our lives.

We need the liquid for day-to-day survival, yet we often ignore our body’s cries for more water, at a grave cost to health and well-being.

It is estimated that 90 per cent of us are chronically dehydrated. Drink just five glasses of water per day and you will cut your risk of developing breast cancer by 79 per cent. The same amount of water will make you 45 per cent less likely to develop cancer of the colon.

Many of the common complaints which plague most people’s lives, such as tiredness, headaches, dry skin, low immunity, cellulite, indigestion and weight gain, are caused by day-to-day dehydration.

If you suffer from one or more of these conditions, you may change the quality of your life immeasurably simply by ensuring you drink two litres of water a day.

Being properly hydrated will help to keep you in peak health. Our bodies are 75 per cent water, but if this level drops by just 2 per cent then we become dehydrated. As soon as this happens, our bodies slow down and begin to operate less efficiently.

A detox give the body a chance to rest so it can cleanse itself. In just 18 days on the Water Detox programme, your body can effectively start again with a clean slate, feeling fabulous.

The Water Detox will help you to tackle health problems – from niggling persistent tiredness or wrinkled skin to more long-term concerns such as weight gain and high blood pressure.

The secret of the detox is simply in the quantity of water you consume. As well as drinking two litres a day, you get an additional litre from food on a nutritional plan which contains at least 50 per cent water.

Once you begin to drink the correct amount of water, you will soon notice improved levels of energy, glowing skin, weight loss, reduction in cellulite and an improved immune system.

It does not matter whether you drink bottle or tap water, but bottle flavoured waters are not permitted on the Water Detox because they almost certainly will be full of sugar and artificial flavours.

It should take you only two or three days to get used to drinking the correct amount of water. To get the best results, you will need to follow a few simple rules:

· Drink at least two litres of water a day.
· On a hot day, increase the daily amount by at least half a litre. Make sure at least one-and-a-half litres of the water is still (not sparkling) water.
· The water should be fresh and, ideally at room temperature.
· Spread your water intake over a day, ideally drinking a glass an hour.
· When you exercise, drink throughout the workout and afterwards. This extra water is in addition to your two daily litres.
· Coffee, tea, alcohol and fruit cordials do not count as water.
· As soon as you get up, drink a glass of water to rehydrate you from the night before.
· Drink a glass of water before lunch and supper to dampen your appetite and to stop you from drinking water with your food, which decreases the absorption of nutrients.
· Make sure you have had at least 1½ litres of water before 6pm.

The 18-day Water Detox Programme

It is vital to drink enough water and to eat the right foods to get the most benefit from the detox.

Certain food types contain up to 50 per cent water, and in some cases up to 95 per cent. Concentrating on these foods will lead to the best nutrition and hydration, though you still need to drink at least two litres of water a day.

You should not eat anything that is not on the programme because this may slow the process or even reverse it. You should particularly avoid diuretics, as they could cause you to lose the same volume of water and more. These include alcohol and drinks containing caffeine, such as colas, coffee and tea.

Exercise is important because it speeds up the cleansing process – but drink throughout your workout and consume at least an extra litre of water per hour of exercise.

When we sleep, we lose water through sweating and the normal metabolic processes. So start the day with a large glass of water, followed by a breakfast which is high in water content. Yoghurt and fruit are excellent. Make the first meal of the day ‘high hydration’.

It is also advisable to exclude certain herbs, such as juniper, dandelions and nettle teas, which encourage the body to expel fluids.

Also avoid foods such as curries and spices which increase body heat and use more fluids than normal.

During the 18-day water detox, you can eat oily fish, oils, yoghurts, potatoes, beans and pulses, vegetables, fruits, rice and salads.

For each of the 18 days, you should drink at least two litres of plain water and eat at least three full meals or five small meals a day. You must eat at least five portions of fruit, five portions of fish, beans or pulses, one portion of rice, and one portion of oil or cheese per day.

You can eat as much as you like of any food which is permitted, but this is the minimum that you should consume.

The cheeses and oils do not always have a 50 per cent water content, but I have included them to ensure that you get a balanced diet. I recommend sheep’s and goat’s products rather than those made from cow’s milk because they are much more easily digested by the human body and much easier to tolerate.

Eating raw foods will maintain fluid levels and help to preserve the nutrients. Aim to eat half of your foods each day raw.

To keep food succulent and with the right level of water, you must use the right cooking methods. Always try to use any of the juices, essences or fluids that come out of the foods for dressings, sauces or gravy to pour back over them. Steaming will also leave your food moist and juicy.

The best way to ensure you don’t lose fluids during cooking is to add them. Choose stews, soups, smoothes and long drinks. Select the foods which you like best and find easier to prepare.

Eat your main meal during the day and not late in the evening. It is better to have four or five light meals a day than to have a huge plate of food three times a day, which can cause big surges and drops in energy and blood sugar.

If you are tempted to snack, remember that 75 per cent of hunger pangs are requests from our bodies for water. Each time you feel hungry, have a glass of water. If, after 20 minutes, you are still peckish, then eat something, as long as your snack is one of the food allowed. Yoghurt, hummus and crudités are a good idea.
The Water Detox diet is not a diet, but a healthy way to cleanse your body. It will also help you to lose any excess weight.
Extracted from Water Detox: Total Health and Beauty in 8 Easy Steps by Jane Scrivener

THE FACTS ABOUT H20

· 75 per cent of our hunger pangs are signals of thirst
· Our brain is 75 per cent water
· Blood is 92 per cent water
· Bones are 22 per cent water
· Muscles are 75 per cent water
· Brain cells are 82 per cent water
· Moderate dehydration can cause headaches and even dizziness
· On hot days, sweating can cause you to lose up to 16 glasses of water a day
· The body loses as much water when asleep as when awake
· Mild dehydration slows the metabolism by as much as 3 per cent
· A 2 per cent drop in hydration can slow mental recall

HOW IT CAN EFFECT YOUR BODY

Drinking water improves the efficiency of all major body organs. The liver, lungs, skin, kidneys and intestines all use water as a vehicle for cleansing. Inadequate quantities of water slow the system down and can causes you to suffer from constipation, grey skin, infections and swollen glands.

Dehydration
Simple day-to-day dehydration can cause tiredness, bad circulation, high blood pressure, headaches, dizziness, aching joints, dry skin, urinary infections, slow metabolism, low immunity, stress, cellulite, weight gain and indigestion.

The Liver
The largest internal organ, the liver works to detoxify the body by taking in ‘poisons’ such as additives and alcohol. A severely overtaxed liver can lead to lethargy and, in extreme cases, jaundice.

The Kidneys
The kidneys cleanse the blood and regulate potassium and sodium levels. Overworked kidneys can cause tiredness, or, more seriously, kidney infections and kidney stones.

The Intestines
Food passes through the stomach into the intestines. The goodness is absorbed and waste eliminated. Digestion takes about eight hours from consumption to elimination in a healthy body, but more than 24 in a dehydrated one.

The Lymph System
Lymph, absorbs dead cells, excess fluids and other waste products and takes them to the lymph nodes, which are under your armpits and in the areas of your groin and knees. Here, the waste is filtered and eventually fed to the eliminatory organs – skin, liver or kidneys – to be passed out.

The Lungs
The lungs filter pollution and toxins, including cigarette fumes and chemicals from the air we breathe. The lungs are full of little air sacs which fill with inhaled air. The lungs then expel carbon dioxide and waste water.

The Skin
The skin sweats out waste products such as salt, uric acid, ammonia and urea. Its condition is an excellent indicator of the condition of internal organs. Spots and a pale skin can be one of the first signs that we have not been taking care of ourselves.

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Reference:http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/170402/healingpowerofwater.htm

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MP3 player headphones may hinder pacemakers

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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Headphones used with MP3 digital music players like the iPod may interfere with heart pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The MP3 players themselves posed no threat to pacemakers and defibrillators, used to normalize heart rhythm. But strong little magnets inside the headphones can foul up the devices if placed within 1.2 inches (3 cm) of them, the researchers told an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans.

Dr. William Maisel of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston led a team that tested eight models of MP3 player headphones, including clip-on and earbud types, in 60 defibrillator and pacemaker patients.

They placed the headphones on the patients’ chests, directly over the devices. The headphones interfered with the heart devices in about a quarter of the patients — 14 of the 60 — and interference was twice as likely in those with a defibrillator than with a pacemaker.

Another study presented at the meeting showed that cellular phones equipped with wireless technology known as Bluetooth are unlikely to interfere with pacemakers.

A pacemaker sends electrical impulses to the heart to speed up or slow cardiac rhythm. The magnet, however, could make it deliver a signal no matter what the heart rate is, possibly leading to palpitations or arrhythmia, the researchers said.

An implantable cardioverter defibrillator signals the heart to normalize its rhythm if it gets too fast or slow. A magnet could de-activate it, making it ignore an abnormal heart rhythm instead of delivering an electrical shock to normalize it.

The devices usually go back to working the right way after the headphones are removed, the researchers said.

“The main message here is: it’s fine for patients to use their headphones normally, meaning they can listen to music and keep the headphones in their ears. But what they should not do is put the headphones near their device,” Maisel said in a telephone interview.

So that means people with pacemakers or defibrillators should not place the headphones in a shirt pocket or coat pocket near the chest when they are not being used, drape them over their chest or have others who are wearing headphones rest their head on the patient’s chest, Maisel said.

Most of the headphones had magnetic field strengths more than 20 times higher than the threshold for interfering with pacemakers or defibrillators, he said. They were made by Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Philips Electronics (PHG.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and others.

MP3 players like Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) iPod are popular consumer electronic devices. In January, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher said the iPod is unlikely to interfere with pacemakers because it does not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with the devices.

Brian Markwalter of the Consumer Electronics Association industry group urged consumers to inform themselves about proper use of products with magnets, and encouraged people with pacemakers to understand how headphones can be used safely.

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Reference:http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0632639220081109

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A cancer patient’s genome decoded for first time

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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists for the first time have decoded the entire genome of a cancer patient, identifying a series of genes never before linked to the type of white blood cell cancer that ultimately killed the woman.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, represents a new approach to grasp the genetic underpinning of cancer and pave the way for better treatments, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said.

The patient was a woman in her 50s who died 23 months after she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, according to Dr. Timothy Ley, who led the study. Only one in five patients who get this disease, also called AML or acute myelogenous leukemia, live more than five years after diagnosis.

Ley and colleagues aimed to find genetic mutations that might initiate the development of AML. They sequenced the genes in a sample of normal skin tissue from the woman as well as the genes in her tumor cells taken from bone marrow.

The technique is called high-throughput sequencing.

By comparing tumor tissue to normal tissue, they pinpointed 10 mutated genes in the cancerous tissue apparently involved in triggering AML. Previous research had linked two of them to AML, but the rest never before had been implicated.

“The other eight were all things that caught us off guard. They’re all new. And they are all in genes that we didn’t really have on our radar for this particular kind of cancer. In retrospect, they all make sense,” Ley said.

Three of them normally act to suppress tumor growth, four are involved in promoting cell growth and the final one may affect how drugs enter a cell, the researchers said.

“This is the only way we would have found these mutations. There’s no other path to get this information. I think it really has begun to tell us how little we know about cancer,” Ley added in a telephone interview.

The treatment of AML has changed little in the past two decades because most of the genetic events behind the disease had remained unknown, the researchers said.

“This is the first human cancer genome that’s been sequenced. In the past, we’ve always looked at parts of the genome for mutations. But this is the first time that we’ve been able to look at everything,” Ley said.

A deeper genetic understanding of cancer — now possible with speedier, cheaper DNA sequencing technology — can serve as the foundation for developing more effective ways to diagnose and treat cancer, the researchers said.

“There are probably many, many ways to mutate a small number of genes to get the same result, and we’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg in terms of identifying the combinations of genetic mutations that can lead to AML,” Richard Wilson, one of the researchers, said in a statement.

AML, a common kind of leukemia in adults, begins inside bone marrow, tissue inside bones that helps form blood cells. Each year in the United States, about 13,000 people are diagnosed with AML — usually in people age 60 and older — and it kills about 8,800 people.

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Reference:http://www.reuters.com/

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