Tuesday 4 June 2019

Lymphoma trial finds combination targeted therapy effective prior to chemotherapy

Results of a Phase II clinical trial conducted at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center revealed that combination targeted therapy, consisting of rituximab, lenalidomide and ibrutinib (RLI), had an 84.6 percent overall response rate (ORR) and 38.5 percent complete response rate (CRR) when given prior to any chemotherapy for newly diagnosed patients with a specific type of diffuse large b-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

* This article was originally published here

Researchers add 'time-travel' feature to drives to fight ransomware attacks

One of the latest cyber threats involves hackers encrypting user files and then charging "ransom" to get them back. In the paper, "Project Almanac: A Time-Traveling Solid State Drive," University of Illinois students Chance Coats and Xiaohao Wang and Assistant Professor Jian Huang from the Coordinated Science Laboratory look at how they can use the commodity storage devices already in a computer, to save the files without having to pay the ransom.

* This article was originally published here

Maestro: a new attack that orchestrates malicious flows with BGP

Researchers at the University of Tennessee have recently identified the Maestro attack, a new link flooding attack (LFA) that leverages plane traffic control engineering techniques to concentrate botnet-sourced distributed denial of service (DDos) flows on transit links. In their paper, recently published on arXiv, the researchers outlined this type attack, tried to understand its scope and presented effective mitigations for network operators who wish to insulate themselves from it.

* This article was originally published here

Rare fossils provide more detailed picture of biodiversity during Middle Ordovician

A clutch of marine fossil specimens unearthed in northern Portugal that lived between 470 and 459 million years ago is filling a gap in understanding evolution during the Middle Ordovician period.

* This article was originally published here

More states sue opioid maker alleging deceptive marketing

California, Hawaii, Maine and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits Monday against the maker of OxyContin and the company's former president, alleging the firm falsely promoted the drug by downplaying the risk of addiction while it emerged as one of the most widely abused opioids in the U.S.

* This article was originally published here

Deaths from falls among older Americans are on the rise

New research shows fatal falls have nearly tripled in older Americans in recent years, rising to more than 25,000 deaths yearly.

* This article was originally published here

Children's brains reorganize after epilepsy surgery to retain visual perception

Children can keep full visual perception—the ability to process and understand visual information—after brain surgery for severe epilepsy, according to a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. While brain surgery can halt seizures, it carries significant risks, including an impairment in visual perception. However, a new report by Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, researchers from a study of children who had undergone epilepsy surgery suggests that the lasting effects on visual perception can be minimal, even among children who lost tissue in the brain's visual centers.

* This article was originally published here

REPLAB: A low-cost benchmark platform for robotic learning

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a reproducible, low-cost and compact benchmark platform to evaluate robotic learning approaches, which they called REPLAB. Their recent study, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, was supported by Berkeley DeepDrive, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Google, NVIDIA and Amazon.

* This article was originally published here

A 3-D printer powered by machine vision and artificial intelligence

Objects made with 3-D printing can be lighter, stronger, and more complex than those produced through traditional manufacturing methods. But several technical challenges must be overcome before 3-D printing transforms the production of most devices.

* This article was originally published here

Everything will connect to the internet someday, and this biobattery could help

In the future, small paper and plastic devices will be able to connect to the internet for a short duration, providing information on everything from healthcare to consumer products, before they are thrown away. Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a micro biobattery that could power these disposable sensors.

* This article was originally published here

Climate change is driving rapid shifts between high and low water levels on the Great Lakes

The North American Great Lakes contain about one-fifth of the world's surface fresh water. In May, new high water level records were set on Lakes Erie and Superior, and there has been widespread flooding across Lake Ontario for the second time in three years. These events coincide with persistent precipitation and severe flooding across much of central North America.

* This article was originally published here

Top Russian internet firm reportedly under pressure on data

Russia's leading internet company says it's committed to data privacy as it responds to reports that the national intelligence agency is pressuring it into handing over encryption keys.

* This article was originally published here

A prescription for exercise

Richard Carpenter, 75, was going through the mail one day last year when he saw a postcard from UCI seeking participants for a study on whether exercise can help with age-related memory loss.

* This article was originally published here

PULP Dronet: A 27-gram nano-UAV inspired by insects

Researchers at ETH Zürich and the University of Bologna have recently created PULP Dronet, a 27-gram nano-size unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a deep learning-based visual navigation engine. Their mini-drone, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, can run aboard an end-to-end, closed-loop visual pipeline for autonomous navigation powered by a state-of-the-art deep learning algorithm.

* This article was originally published here

Agent Unicorn headset for ADHD children may make understanding easier

The quest for a better understanding among scientists of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) goes on.

* This article was originally published here

Fear of 'killer shrimps' could pose major threat to European rivers

The fear of invasive 'killer shrimps' can intimidate native organisms to such a degree that they are incapable of performing their vital role in river systems, a new study suggests.

* This article was originally published here

Cracking open the black box of automated machine learning

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed an interactive tool that, for the first time, lets users see and control how automated machine-learning systems work. The aim is to build confidence in these systems and find ways to improve them.

* This article was originally published here

Higher surgical volume may improve outcomes in cervical cancer

(HealthDay)—Surgery at high-volume centers is associated with decreased local recurrence risk and improved survival for women with early-stage cervical cancer, according to a study published in the June issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

* This article was originally published here

The dangers of being a people-pleaser

(HealthDay)—Being thoughtful and caring are great qualities to have, but if you go out of your way to get people to like you, you could be a people-pleaser, with unfortunate consequences for your own well-being.

* This article was originally published here

Gene-edited chicken cells resist bird flu virus in the lab

Scientists have used gene-editing techniques to stop the bird flu virus from spreading in chicken cells grown in the lab.

* This article was originally published here