Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 7325

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a non-obligate precursor of breast cancer, and it only progresses to invasive breast cancer in around 40% of patients. While immune infiltrates have been observed in these early cancer lesions, their potential prognostic value is still unclear. Regulatory T (Treg) cells accumulate in advanced breast cancers, and predict poor outcome. We have shown before that ablation of Treg cells in established tumors leads to significant decrease in primary and metastatic tumor burden. In this work, we sought to investigate Treg cell function in the progression from non-invasive to invasive breast cancer lesions. To this end, we used the murine mammary tumor virus polyoma middle T (MMTV-PyMT) murine model of spontaneous, stage-wise breast carcinogenesis crossed to Foxp3DTR knock in mice, allowing Treg cell ablation by administration of diphtheria toxin. Transient targeting of Treg cells at the in situ carcinoma stage resulted in a significant increase in the number of tumor-bearing mammary glands and size of growing tumors compared with control mice. Whole mammary gland mounts and histological examination confirmed larger emergent tumor area in Treg cell-ablated mice, and revealed that these tumors were characterized by a more advanced tumor staging, with presence of early invasion, increased desmoplasia and collagen deposition. Furthermore, Treg cell ablation increased the percentage of cancer stem/progenitor cells in the mammary compartment. Interestingly, Treg cell ablation resulted in increased inflammatory cytokines IL-4 and IL-5 with a concomitant reduction in classically activated tumor associated macrophages. This TH2-biased immune regulatory mammary inflammation was consistent with the enhancement in tumor promotion that we observed. Overall, our study demonstrates that Treg cells oppose breast cancer progression at early stages, raising a cautionary note regarding the consideration of immune intervention targeted at boosting immune responses for DCIS.

While death from breast cancer has slowly declined in the past few years, mammographic screening has led to a dramatic increase in the detection of pre-invasive breast lesions in women (1–3). This paradoxical observation can be explained by the fact that only a low percentage of early breast disease progresses to invasive, metastatic carcinomas. Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a heterogenous group of neoplastic lesions confined to the breast ducts, and can remain indolent for life in up to 60% of cases. Patients diagnosed with DCIS undergo breast-conserving therapy or mastectomy, frequently accompanied by radiotherapy and in some cases, hormonal therapy. Thus far, there are no reliable parameters to distinguish those cases that will progress, resulting in significant overtreatment.

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A new species of prehistoric reptile has apparently been discovered within the depths of the Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona.

Named Skybalonyx skapter, the fossilized remains are believed to be a new species of drepanosaur, a reported 220-million-year-old burrowing reptile that potentially looked like a combination of an anteater and chameleon, the Petrified Forest National Park said Tuesday in a news release.

Skybalonyx skapter, though, may have looked even more peculiar, the release said.

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Tesla is arguing that there’s actually no defect with its Model S/Model X suspension and that China is basically forcing an unnecessary recall.

Earlier today, we reported on Tesla recalling almost 30,000 Model S and Model X vehicles that were shipped to China over an alleged issue with its suspension.

As we stated in the report, there were a few things that were strange about this report — primarily the fact that it only affected Model S and Model X vehicles sent to China between 2013 and 2017 even though those vehicles were produced in the US, and Tesla used the same suspension as all other Model S and Model X produced during that period.

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The presence of a Asian giant hornet nest, also known as murder hornets, has been confirmed in Washington state.

“The rumors are true — our entomologists located the first-ever #AsianGiantHornet nest in the U.S. late yesterday,” a tweet from the Washington State Department of Agriculture reads. It also includes a video of the nest.

Asian giant hornets are the world’s largest hornet and are native to areas of east Asia, south Asia and parts of eastern Russia.

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Featured image: TransAlta / Twitter One of Tesla’s main goals is the deployment of energy generation and storage systems. These microgrids can provide electricity to homes, relieving our dependence on a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy. Tesla currently has over 120 operational microgrids around the world, which is an excellent confirmation of the company’s success in achieving its goals.

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Security on the internet is a never-ending cat-and-mouse game. Security specialists constantly come up with new ways of protecting our treasured data, only for cyber criminals to devise new and crafty ways of undermining these defenses. Researchers at TU/e have now found evidence of a highly sophisticated Russian-based online marketplace that trades hundreds of thousands of very detailed user profiles. These personal ‘fingerprints’ allow criminals to circumvent state-of-the-art authentication systems, giving them access to valuable user information, such as credit card details.

Our online economy depends on usernames and passwords to make sure that the person buying stuff or transferring money on the internet, is really the person they are saying. However, this limited way of authentication has proven to be far from secure, as people tend to reuse their passwords across several services and websites. This has led to a massive and highly profitable illegal trade in user credentials: According to a recent estimate (from 2017) some 1.9 billion stolen identities were sold through underground markets in a year’s time.

It will come as no surprise that banks and other have come up with more complex authentication systems, which rely not only on something the users know (their password), but also something they have (e.g. a token). This process, known as multi-factor authentication (MFA), severely limits the potential for cybercrime, but has drawbacks. Because it adds an extra step, many users don’t bother to register for it, which means that only a minority of people use it.

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