All posts tagged: mission

One man’s mission to revive a forgotten, life-saving cancer drug | Cancer research

One man’s mission to revive a forgotten, life-saving cancer drug | Cancer research

Published by skeptic

For the past decade, the Dutch immunologist Jacques (Sjaak) Neefjes has been on a mission to bring back a cancer drug that hasn’t been available in Europe since 2004. “I’m still flabbergasted that a compound that could have helped thousands of people was taken off the market,” says Neefjes. Why it was removed seems something of a mystery, but as far as he can tell, it was simply a lack of demand. His latest research shows that this drug, aclarubicin, can improve the survival of people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) much better than other forms of chemotherapy. If it had been available in Europe for the past 20 years, Neefjes estimates that it could have helped 100,000 people. But while the maths sounds simple, the path of Neefjes’s research has been far from smooth. In his attempts to revive aclarubicin, he has smuggled small amounts from China, found old samples in a Finnish freezer, and funded part of his work using an inheritance from a Dutch MP who was murdered 10 years ago. “It …

‘I am their voice now’: the Tanzanian rapper with a mission to spread pride in his own colour | Global development

‘I am their voice now’: the Tanzanian rapper with a mission to spread pride in his own colour | Global development

Published by skeptic

Every day during school break, Ramadhani Idrisa Muhando and his friends would turn on their radio to listen to 20 Percent or Jose Chameleone, stars of bongo flava, a Tanzanian music genre influenced by hip-hop and R&B. So his love of music, he says, “has its roots in that schoolyard” in Tanga, on Tanzania’s east coast, but it was singeli, a style developed 125 miles away in Dar es Salaam, that changed the course of his life. “Boda boda [motorcycle] drivers played singeli on loudspeakers. Those new rhythms flooded our neighbourhoods and I couldn’t help but fall into its nets,” he says. Muhando – known as K-Zungu – is a singeli artist, the first the country has known with albinism. “Zungu means ‘white’ in Swahili, and K is the first letter of my grandfather’s name, Kaniki. That’s why I chose that name,” he says. Albinism, a hereditary condition that results in a lack of pigmentation in skin, hair and eyes, affecting one in 1,400 Tanzanians, is bound up in superstition. Some people believe myths that …

General election: Rishi Sunak says reforming welfare is ‘moral mission’ as he pledges to cut rising costs of benefits | Politics News

General election: Rishi Sunak says reforming welfare is ‘moral mission’ as he pledges to cut rising costs of benefits | Politics News

Published by Sam

The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week. The party is promising to cut the cost of welfare to the tune of £12bn a year by the end of the next parliament through measures aimed at helping people back into work. The plan includes a £700m investment in NHS mental health treatment to ensure 500,000 more people can access talking therapies by 2030. It also includes previously announced measures, such as removing benefits for people not taking jobs after 12 months. The number of working age people who are economically inactive has soared to record highs following the pandemic. The trend is thought to be driven mainly by those who have taken early retirement and people with long-term health conditions waiting for treatment on the NHS. But the Conservative Party has said the 40% increase of people out of work – from two million to 2.8 million since COVID – is unsustainable. It claims the cost …

My mission? A two-day voyage along the Norfolk coast to deliver potatoes for a chip shop | Sailing holidays

My mission? A two-day voyage along the Norfolk coast to deliver potatoes for a chip shop | Sailing holidays

Published by skeptic

The water glitters, rippled by a rising wind, and Victorious glides silently on three huge, maroon sails. We’re the only boat in sight, surrounded by grey sea and vast sky. Every direction offers a subtly different picture: patches of blue and fluffy clouds, billowing blue-black clouds, occasional rays of sunshine beaming into the Wash. A flock of Brent geese flies across our bows. Wash map “It just feels like she’s made for these waters. It’s magical,” purrs one of my five fellow sailors, . We’re taking potatoes from the Fenland channel of Fosdyke to make chips in Norfolk, and the hold of our immaculately restored 42ft shrimping smack will be packed with extra goods when we reach King’s Lynn. I’m more supernumerary than sailor, lacking any real knowledge of sails, ropes or knots, but if this is sailing, it’s the most beautiful and exhilarating thing. We feel at one with the water, riding the swell and wind like a bird, and a passing peregrine falcon treats us as such, swooping low past our mast with …

‘We have a mission’: the Odesa artists refusing to abandon their studios | Ukraine

‘We have a mission’: the Odesa artists refusing to abandon their studios | Ukraine

Published by skeptic

Behind a gate presided over by a taciturn doorman, on the shore of the Black Sea in Odesa, is a tumbledown ship repair yard. It is one of many industrial sites in Ukraine that fell into disuse after the fall of the Soviet Union, but in 2016 a community of young artists started cleaning up debris, renovating the old workshops and making studios. Now, in 2024, when the city is regularly pounded by Russian missiles, its city streets empty of the tourists who once flocked to its historic centre, there are just a handful of artists willing to withstand the continuous threat to life. Vasya Dmytryk is one of those artists who has chosen to remain, his studio, a few metres from the shoreline, a cosy cave of books, tools and metal sculptures suspended from the ceiling. On his workbench was a copper-and-steel sculpture recalling the shape of a drone. His plan is to exchange it for a real drone: “We have a very direct mission as artists,” he said. “Raising money for the army.” …

The billion-mile mission to explore Saturn’s biggest moon Big Think

The billion-mile mission to explore Saturn’s biggest moon Big Think

Published by skeptic

There are many reasons to attend a scientific conference. You get to see collaborators and friends who are pushing new projects forward. You get to watch lots of cool talks updating you on the latest cool results in your research domain. And then it happens, every now and then, that you attend some big talk on a subject you know nothing about and come out staggered. That’s what happened to me this week at the 2024 Astrobiology Conference (or AbSciCon) where I learned about NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s giant moon Titan. AbSciCon is a big conference. It happens once every two years with multiple concurrent sessions running on all kinds of topics — everything from the origin of life to the nature of evolution to the physics of exoplanets. My colleagues and I had fun presenting a bunch of new research results. But what I love about this conference is the opportunity to learn so much about so many different fields. Most of the talks are short, 15-minute affairs that give you just a …

Boeing Starliner’s first crewed mission scrubbed

Boeing Starliner’s first crewed mission scrubbed

Published by skeptic

Boeing’s Starliner launch tonight has been postponed “out of an abundance of caution” scarcely two hours before the historic liftoff. The scrub is reportedly due to an issue with the oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V rocket’s upper stage. There are backup launch opportunities on May 7, 10 and 11. After years of delays and over $1 billion in cost overruns, the mission is set to be Boeing’s first attempt to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Once the issue is resolved with the upper stage, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V will carry the CST-100 Starliner capsule to orbit along with the two onboard astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams — from Florida’s Cape Canaveral at 10:34 PM local time Monday evening. The mission also marks the first time ULA’s Atlas will carry crew. The rocket boasts a success rate of 100% across 99 missions. (ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.) The astronauts would now dock at the station at the earliest on Thursday, where they would …

SpaceX reveals new sleek spacesuits ahead of upcoming historic mission

SpaceX reveals new sleek spacesuits ahead of upcoming historic mission

Published by skeptic

SpaceX has revealed its new Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suits that could make their low-Earth orbital debut by summer’s end. The new uniform is described as an evolution of the spacesuits currently worn by astronauts aboard Dragon missions, which are designed solely for remaining within pressurized environments. In contrast, the EVA suits will allow astronauts to work both within and outside their capsule as needed thanks to a number of advancements in materials fabrication, joint design, enhanced redundancy safeguards, as well as the integration of a helmet visor heads up display (HUD). Announced over the weekend, the SpaceX EVA suits will be worn by the four crewmembers scheduled to comprise the Polaris Program’s first mission, Polaris Dawn. First launched in 2022, the Polaris Program is a joint venture through SpaceX intended to “rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities,” according to its website. Targeted for no earlier than summer 2024, Polaris Dawn will mark the first commercial spacewalk, as well as the first spacewalk to simultaneously include four astronauts. While making history outside their Dragon capsule, the crew …

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to launch first crewed mission

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to launch first crewed mission

Published by skeptic

Boeing’s first crewed mission of its Starliner spacecraft is set to launch Monday night, a milestone for the aerospace manufacturer. The Starliner is scheduled to lift off at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, weather permitting, carrying two NASA astronauts. The Crew Flight Test will be the first time Boeing’s aerospace efforts carry people into space after a decade of development. Boeing hopes the Starliner can take the astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), and plans to rival commercial spacecraft offerings from SpaceX, which has dominated private spaceflight for years. NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be on board for Monday’s launch, planning to spend a week at the ISS. The test flight will also see the astronauts take the craft through a series of careful maneuvers to push its capabilities. A successful mission would be a massive success for Boeing, which has consistently fallen behind SpaceX since both companies were selected for commercial space flights in 2014. SpaceX has operated nine crewed missions so far, while Boeing has only run two unmanned flights. Boeing …