Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.
That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)
DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.
To contact Orac: [email protected]
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34 replies on “How to kill cancer cells”
Since the strip wouldn’t be complete without its alt text.
No need for a gun, Orac. Hypotonic solution causes cell lysis.
(Biology 101)
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Hypotonic_solution
Thanks for the cartoon!
Physical scientists in particular have a warm spot in their hearts for xkcd,.
Yes, lilady, our old friend dihydrogen monoxide can indeed kill cancer cells!
A great deal of the “peer-reviewed” studies I hear quoted by alt media involve *in vitro* studies without mention of the most salient fact : *in vitro* not the same as *in vivo* altho’ they share many of the same letters.
as an aside- hilariously, I might add:
recently PRN’s woo-meister-at-large whilst reading a study aloud -that he mis-understood grievously-
quoted amounts of a particular nutrient as ” u grams”… ( i.e he pronounced the letter ‘U’) for what was probably ‘mu’ ( i.e. micrograms/ mcg- I have no mus on this keyboard).
He didn’t know that it designated mcg!
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. He’s a scientist, professor, researcher, educator and translates “dry scientific material” into “lay language” for his audience.
Pro Tip:
Don’t get information from a nutritionist/ health expert who doesn’t know mille- from micro-.
Well, Denice, I guess no “mu”s is good “mu”s.
@ plaindrom:
We have an Irish cousin commonly referred to as “Mu”.
Not only do we have lots of things that kill cancer cells in vitro, we are very good at curing cancer in mice. In humans, sadly, not so much.
Denice – if you have an Alt key, holding it down, typing “230” and releasing the Alt will usually produce a µ.
Other ways to measure effect include imaging, serial blood markers, biopsy and full tissue. Some of the common drugs do have important claims that have not been followed up with alacrity but do have potentially distinctive responses.
No doubt Drs Weisenthal and Nagourney would find Orac’s views on viable tissue testing dated, if not an uninformed anachronism. Last I saw, Orac’s view was based on evaluations of other technology contemporary with the Yugo auto. Lots different than a 2012 BMW.
I have no mus on this keyboard
There is an HTML escape sequence for that: typing μ gives you μ. Similarly for other Greek letters. If you need an upper case Greek letter, capitalize the first letter in the escape sequence (e.g., Δ gives you Δ instead of δ).
Some of those Greek letters can be a bit obscure (many of my undergraduate classmates had never seen a lowercase zeta until they took statistical mechanics), but mu is not one of them. How does one get to be a scientist without encountering it? Aside from being an SI prefix, it comes up in a bunch of different physics contexts, and I think the chemists sometimes use it as well (though I may be misremembering that part).
Thanks for the info, guys.
I did my stat work prior to required computer. ( 1980s) and hired people to type important stuff.
Let’s see:
I’ll try both-
&mu &Delta
No dice, fellows.
@ Denice, Want to hire me (in 5 years as an industrial engineer)?
Alain
μ δ
Blame lack of sleep (spent the night doing my first spaghetti sauce since my PTSD) but I’m on a roll…Might do a certificate in german and go do engineering for bmw or mercedes-benz 🙂
Alain
Clearly cannabis has benefits. With the US now patenting deliver systems for cannabinoids in treatment of prostate, breast, and colon cancer, that’s pretty hard to deny (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=%22GW+Pharma%22&s2=cannabis&OS=%22GW+Pharma%22+AND+cannabis).
Specially with living, breathing tests…which I’ll refrain from posting the countless links to.
DW: Did you by any chance forget the semicolon? Surrounding anything by ampersand-semicolon is how you get it to display without being interpreted as an html tag, like if you want to show people how to blockquote: Ampersand-lt (for “less than”)-semicolon appears as: <. (The closing brackets don’t seem to matter.)
Let me try &&230;;
And then I didn’t actually do it! &230;
Nope. Oh well, back to switching to “Polytonic Greek” and using Keyboard Viewer. μ
I still get hassled over my use of “canonical.”
Narad @19 — I always thought the Grand Canonical Ensemble was Napoleon’s prized artillery battery, but then my French isn’t very good.
Δ Μ Α Β
Try doing this for �x230;
“palindrom
May 27, 2013
Physical scientists in particular have a
warm spot in their hearts for xkcd,.”
Even this one?
xkcd.com/242/
@Denice – Wow. Not quite the scientific saviour he claims to be.
@prn – Here on Planet Earth we have a concept called “humour”. Look it up in the spirit of “When on Earth…” and all that.
If that’s too much for you then maybe it’s time to return to Planet Stavianus, with its stony faces, and famous golden ascorbic acid falls.
I read that XKCD just now (getting caught up on ‘toons after the Memorial Day weekend) and immediately came over here. 😀
Denice said: Don’t get information from a nutritionist/ health expert who doesn’t know mille- from micro-.
Aww, come on. It’s only three orders of magnitude…
elburto: Humour transcends even Planet Earth, as a certain Commander Hadfield so aptly demonstrated recently…
Also, he just told people via Twitter not to feel bad about their diets going badly, as he gained 170 pounds the other day. Ba-dum-tish!
*snort* Fabulous!
I demand localised antigravity and a robotic exoskellington. That way, I could weigh the same as a labradog while also being a kick-arse mobile wooligan-reformer
I need this as a T-shirt. Snarky science t-shirts are for lab days.
Very amusing indeed! I feel like this illustration is very spot on to what people think should happen in cancer research. In general, the mass population feels that there is a definite “cure” for cancer. However, this is not the case. As a scientific community we know that cancer is caused from spontaneous mutations that build-up over time. Our bodies work like well oiled machines. Our cells replicate at an extremely fast rate day in and day out. Cells have checkpoints that allow them to search for any mutations that may have occurred in the DNA during the replication process. When the damaged and mutated cell that was created is found, the cell either goes to apoptosis or is killed by our immune system. But trouble arises when these damaged cells miss these vital checkpoints and begin to grow rapidly out of control. Chemotherapy drugs, while very effective, are only useful if the cancer covers a large area or has metastasized. But chemotherapy can also kill the healthy cells as well. Radiation is also effective, but like chemotherapy, it to causes damage to the normal, healthy cells around the cancerous ones. I realize that our body has over 60 trillion cells and finding out which ones are mutated and cancerous is close to impossible, it would be interesting if there was some type of test developed to detect the location where cells are being heavily mutated and replicated. If something like this was discovered we would be able to prevent the cancer from ever leaving that specific area. If something like this could be discovered we could help millions of families physically, emotionally, and even financially.
Ryan, healthy cells are often heavily mutated and replicated.
How would you plan to isolate the skin?
Dan Nelson @16 : there are also patents for Death Rays and Perpetual motion machines. You can patent almost anything if you can provide evidence that it’s new art. go figure.
Orac — did you see the one in the media (huff-post, where else?) about capsicum and how it kills cancer cells in vitro?
I was reminded of this post when I saw the item.
can use gamma ray, but will kill the normal cells