Stunning Success.

Illiquid markets, space debris and Blue Whales.

1. The patients had metastatic breast cancer that had been progressing despite rounds of harsh chemotherapy. But a treatment with a drug that targeted cancer cells with laser-like precision was stunningly successful, slowing tumor growth and extending life to an extent rarely seen with advanced cancers. The new study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and published on Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine, would change how medicine was practiced, cancer specialists said. “This is a new standard of care,” said Dr. Eric Winer, a breast cancer specialist, director of the Yale Cancer Center and head of the A.S.C.O. Dr. Winer was not involved with the study. He added that “it affects a huge number of patients.” (Source: nytimes.com, nejm.org)

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2. The space around Earth is littered with roughly 9,000 metric tonnes of debris, according to NASA. After 65 years of space flight, derelict spacecraft, spent rocket stages, hardware released during missions, exploded motors and more are zooming uncontrollably around earth at speeds of 25,000 km an hour. Roughly 70 per cent of that debris is in low Earth orbit. This region has traditionally been home to science missions such as the Hubble telescope and the International Space Station, where astronauts from different nations have for 20 years studied microgravity and the space environment. The scale and intensity of debris presents a serious challenge to the burgeoning space economy in low Earth orbit, where falling launch costs and smaller cheaper satellites have opened up a market potentially worth up to $3 trillion over the coming decades. Satellites delivering weather and communication services, Earth observation or climate change monitoring, such as the Sentinel-1, fly in low earth orbit. LEO is also used for surveillance, both public and not so public. Read the rest. (Source: ft.com/great visual story-telling)