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1. A joint China-Singapore research team is using nanoparticle technology to create a cancer vaccine that has produced promising results in animal tests – reducing the regrowth and spread of tumors up to seven times more effectively than existing treatments. The nanovaccine attacks not only regular cancerous cells but also cancer stem cells (CSCs), which can lie dormant within tumors during treatment, only awakening when conditions are more favorable to the disease. The researchers detailed their findings in a paper published last month by the peer-reviewed Nature Nanotechnology. (Sources: scmp.com, nature.com)
2. A fusion energy start-up claims to have solved the millennia-old challenge of how to turn other metals into gold. Chrysopoeia, commonly known as alchemy, has been pursued by civilizations as far back as ancient Egypt. Now San Francisco-based Marathon Fusion, a start-up focused on using nuclear fusion to generate power, has said the same process could be used to produce gold from mercury. In an academic paper published last week, Marathon proposes that neutrons released in fusion reactions could be used to produce gold through a process known as nuclear transmutation. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed but has had a positive reception from some experts in the field. “On paper it looks great and everyone so far that I talk to remains intrigued and excited,” Dr Ahmed Diallo, a plasma physicist at the US Department of Energy’s national laboratory at Princeton who has read the study, told the Financial Times.(Sources: ft.com, marathonfusion.com. Research paper is here.)
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