Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hide and Seek, Cancer! Future of detecting cancer in your neighbourhood clinic

We are hoping that the cancer detection in timely manner is not possible because we now have a testing tool that allows you to detect bladder cancer from your pee without causing too much problems.
As #4 most common cancer, bladder cancer is known to be the most difficult to manage because of its invasive process, along with ridiculous price tag.  For example, one diagnostic test costs $150,000.(1)

This video describes “cystoscopy”, an invasive diagnostic test for bladder cancer. Doctors decide how to treat their patients based on the nature of cancer (stage, location, etc.). One standard procedure is “cystoscopy”.
The procedure causes extreme discomfort and pain. Also, numerous tests suggest that there is a significant risk of infection.
Blood in urine (defined as haematuria) serves as a motive to doctors who would suggest cystoscopy to patients because hematuria is a symptom of early-staged bladder cancer. However, only 10% of haematuria patients are actually diagnosed with bladder cancer.
Therefore, developing safer bladder cancer diagnostics involving no puncturing or inserting an instrument into your body is extremely necessary. This might also save resource and money that went in to haematuria patients tested negative (90%) after cystoscopy.
Researchers all around the world had defined cancer fragments from urine or blood with significant accuracy. Sometimes diagnostic test kits was developed such as UroVysion.
*Urovysion was approved by FDA.

This video describes what biomarker (cancer fragment) is.

However, low accuracies of those FDA-approved tests prevented them to replace the cystoscopy.
Feber and his team (from UCL) took one more step by developing UroMark test that had equal accuracy to cystoscopy.
They built a high-accuracy DNA-based test that allowed detecting the cancer fragment in your urine in early stages of bladder cancer.
Most surprisingly, they predicted that their test could even be used to detect cancer fragment in later stages of cancer.
This was false for all existing FDA-approved tests.
In conclusion, UroMark is a novel diagnostic test that can replace an informative, but rather inconvenient cystoscopy.
For Your Information:
Visit the Cambridge Consultants blog on “Current challenges in cancer diagnosis and treatment” to gain a general insight on the subject matter.
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Do you know that you have germs living inside your body? You probably hear from the news that you were born with germs (or microbiome) inside your stomach that help you to stay healthy. Also, some germs even protect you … Continue reading

Critical Period for Language Acquisition

Imagine being isolated, deprived of basic rights, and abused for accidentally making a slight noise. In 1970, the theory of a critical period for language acquisition was tested when a social worker found Genie, a 13-year-old girl, isolated, abused, and underdeveloped. A critical period is a window of time in development for an organism to learn an ability. It is said that after this period, the chances of acquiring the ability are very low if any and after a certain age the ability stays at the same level.

The best time to learn a certain ability is called a critical period.

For language acquisition, this critical period is estimated to be from the age of two to puberty. Well if everyone reaches puberty at different times then isn’t it possible for this critical period to be different in everyone if it does exist at all? Genie, also known as the Wild Child, emerged from isolation after puberty with no linguistic performance and was said to have the mental capabilities of a one year old. So doctors and psychologists had to work with her to improve her mobility, and cognitive function.

The first publicly released picture of Genie at the age of 13.

With their help, Genie learned how to form short sentences of three to four words having the communication abilities of a toddler by the age of 16. This shows that Genie counteracts the theory of the critical period for language acquisition. Meaning that learning language skills is still possible after reaching puberty. From other research, it is also clear that at a younger age learning a language is easier but there is no evidence of strict boundaries for the critical period. The critical period for learning language should either be revised to have new boundaries or dismissed all together.

Some researchers actually prefer calling it a ‘sensitive’ instead of a ‘critical’ period. This might be more accurate as a sensitive period is defined as an extended period after which learning is still possible. I think having a sensitive period for language acquisition would be more appropriate in Genie’s case as she still learned language skills after puberty.

The theory of a critical period for language acquisition still influences much of the research based in developmental and behavioural psychology that occurs today. It is especially prominent in neurological research for the development of the brain and for cognitive mapping. So, if the critical period theory still influences some research today and it is clearly unreliable in Genie’s case then shouldn’t this theory be tested and researched to a much greater extent?

By: Sukhvir Toor

Criminal activities are around us.

Have you ever visited some shopping websites that have unbelievable low prices, or have you ever received some messages talking about making some cash by being a professional shopper? Some wise readers might have already awarded these sites and messages are related to credit card fraud.  Although, nowadays, more and more credit cards are equipped with computer chips for more safety, the incidents of credit card fraud are still increasing. Last year, the incidents rose 16%, which costed 16 billion in loose. How can they still do that with the improving security stander.

I think that it is important for people to know how currently the thefts steal our credit card information. Knowing the mechanism,especially the most updated ones, will help us protect our property in the future.

Currently, because the computer chip credit cards increase the difficulty of fraud in stores or restaurants, almost all the credit card fraud happen on the Internet. There are three major steps for criminals steal money from credit cards.

The first and most important step is gathering credit card information. There are multiple ways for doing it. Web fishing is the most conventional but still a very popular way. These fishing websites are normally pretend to be some shopping sites selling very cheap products. Some people might give them their payment information directly by shopping. Therefore, we should be extremely careful when we try to fulfil any form that required a credit card number and a billing address. It is good to double check the URL and Google the sits for some reviews. In addition to the fishing sites, fake Wi-Fi is another way to obtain your information. Some criminals set up free wireless access points in public area for people using. When you are using it, the criminals, using a method called package capture, can easily get any information that your phone is sending or receiving.   If you are coincidently use this WIFI buying some products online even at sites such as amazon and Newegg, your payment information still might be stolen. Does it sound like something in movie? It is true, so be careful. Do not try to save a few bucks of data fee to use free WIFI in public areas, especially those without any signal encryption. We can see that current credit card fraud using Internet which has lower cost and risk compared to conventional method such as fake pos machines.

The second step is what we cannot see normally. All the leaked payment information is classified and packed. Then these packs of payment information will be selling on some marketing website on tor network.(an anonymous Internet ).  This pic blow is an example of how our payment information are sold online.

 

Normally, there is nothing we can do with this. This is impressive to see a huge amount of data are selling illegally here.

At the final stage, criminals will try to use the leaked payment information to get actual cash. There are a lot of way of money laundry. We should just remember that there is no easy money. The “easy” money is normally dirty. Do not be used as a money laundry machine by criminals.

At the end, if you are unlucky involved in any credit card fraud, you should contact your bank and local police immediately. Here is a url that shows the proper steps.