Month: February 2018

Evan Blass

Evan Blass has shown off leaked renders of an upcoming HMD Nokia phone, the Nokia 7+. This is a midrange device that will probably launch at Mobile World Congress at the end of the month—and it looks way better than your typical mid-range device.

While the Nokia 7+ is not HMD's flagship phone (that would be the Nokia 8), it is the most modern design from HMD. All the flagship design trends are here: slim bezels, an extra-tall 18:9 display, rounded screen corners, and on-screen buttons. There's a dual-camera setup on the back, along with a rear fingerprint reader. The one trend Nokia isn't sticking to is the removal of the headphone jack, which thankfully can be seen at the top of the device. Another design choice that you probably won't see on other phones any time soon: the color combinations, one of which is brown and orange.

Enlarge / A general view of Embassy of the United State of America in Cuba, Havana on September 18, 2017. (credit: Getty | Anadolu Agency)

A preliminary case report on the victims of mysterious “health attacks” in Havana, Cuba details the results of extensive clinical evaluations, concluding that the individuals appear to have sustained “injury to widespread brain networks without an associated history of head trauma.”

The report offers the first medical glimpse of the victims—US government personnel and their families who were serving on diplomatic assignment in Havana. From late 2016 to August 2017, they reported experiencing bizarre and inexplicable sonic and sensory episodes. The episodes tended to include directional, irritating sounds, such as buzzing and piercing squeals, as well as pressure and vibrations. Afterward, the victims developed a constellation of neurological symptoms.

In clinical evaluations of 21 of 24 individuals affected, an interdisciplinary team of doctors at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine retrospectively pieced together symptoms—an average of 203 days after individuals were exposed. They found that the most common issues persisting more than three months after exposure were cognitive impairment (17/21); balance issues (15/21); visual (18/21) and hearing (15/21) problems; sleep impairment (18/21); and headaches (16/21).

Enlarge / T cells are central to the immune system's response to cancer. (credit: NIAID)

The dominant idea about how cancer gets started is called the "two-hit hypothesis." First proposed by Alfred Knudson in 1971, it holds that a cancer starts when one cell gets a mutation in both of its copies of a gene that normally blocks cancer formation (two hits). These two mutations disable the tumor-suppressing function in that cell, which then becomes cancerous. Eventually, the idea was expanded to include two hits not necessarily in the same gene but, rather, in genes controlling the same tumor-suppressing pathway.

But a new idea is challenging the two-hit hypothesis, shifting the focus to the role of the immune system in suppressing cancers. It's an idea that could have big implications for treatments.

Taking a hit

Getting two hits in one cell was considered to be a random and unlucky event. Since mutations occur each time a cell divides, the more times each cell divides, the greater the chances that it would happen. This was why, it was thought, cancer incidence increases with age; the longer a cell has been around, and the more times it has divided, the more opportunities it has had to accrue the two requisite mutations in the same tumor-suppressor pathway.