More Science News

Curry and Skin Cancer:

This article, in Monday's Yahoo News, describes the research into the cancer-fighting properties of one of the ingredients in curry: curcumin, a component of the spice, tumeric. The researchers found that curcumin interfered with melanoma cells and "helped stop the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to the lungs of mice."

"The curcumin suppressed two proteins that tumor cells use to keep themselves immortal, the researchers write in next month's issue of the journal Cancer."

The last statement in the article seems a little contradictory, though: "Aggarwal said people who eat plenty of turmeric have lower rates of some cancers, although the spice itself has not been shown to reduce cancer risk in people." Hmmm. Not sure how that works.

Human-Monkey Brains:

This is just creepy. It's from Monday's News.com.au, an Australian news source.

"SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.

"In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects."

Unfortunately, the article is lacking essential details. It doesn't say which scientists are doing the human-monkey experiments. It references a committee of scientists looking into the ethics of this kind of experiment, but never names the committee or gives a location. The only detail given is to name the committee co-chairperson, "Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics." (The link to her bio was added by me.)

Here is what the committee is doing: "An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence."

I agree with whatever committee this is. Human-monkey brain research is bad science.

And this article is even worse science reporting.