Dutch student designs game in which you can destroy cancer cells

20 year-old Martijn van den Broeck, student at the University of Technology in Eindhoven and also the designer of the so-called Healing Game, had the idea for its project because he wanted to combine something funny that makes you happy (in this case the game) with something totally opposite, the illness. Combining the virtual with the real, he says.  'I think the Healing Game relates to the next nature philosophy because our generation is born and grown playing with video games, we all know how to use them, I just figured a new unexpected application for video games, combining the virtual with the real, the entertainment with the helpful, the familiar with the extraordinary. The goal of this work is to stimulate discussion and debate by translating nanotechnological trends to everyday products', says Martijn.  
The game works as follows: The player swallows an intelligent pill, containing nanoscale capsules and a substance that makes cancer cells glow. By controlling one capsule with a joystick, the player goes on a “search and destroy” mission inside his or her own body. Even friends and family can be invited to help.

Video games are no longer separated from the real world, the virtual world is also real and those worlds are blending more and more. I love how Martijn van den Broeck plays with this and dares to push the limits.

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A cloned mouse by using one drop of blood

Japanese scientists have succeeded to clone a mouse by only using one single drop of blood. The scientists used circulated blood cells who were collected from the tail of a donor mouse who was used to produce the clone. The female cloned mouse should be able to live a normal lifespan and could even give birth to young, according to the researchers. 
Mice already have been cloned by using other parts of the body, such as white blood cells found in the lymph nodes, bone marrow and liver. The research the Japanese scientists were doing was to discover if it was possible to clone a mouse by only using circulating blood cells.

The aim to find an easily available source of donor cells to clone scientifically valuable strains of laboratory mice was not to high, but it is one hell of a breakthrough. Imagine this is possible with human beings. How many of you would be walking around? Crazy idead huh? But not as unreal as you think. Lots of ethical discussions will arise in the near future.

A portrait from a single hair

We are so far with present technology that we can figure out how someone looks by a investigating one single hair. This is what really intrigued the artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg, who spent time collecting hairs shed in public spaces... and then sequencing the DNA therein to print 3D sculptures of what those hairs’ owners might look like.
The video 'DNA Portrait' is a lovely short documentary shot by TED. 'It's a very accessible way for the public to engage with this new technology. It really brings to light how powerful it is, the idea that a hair from your head can fall on your street and a perfect stranger can pick it up and know something about it', says TEDGlobal speaker Ellen Jorgensen, who runs a lab in DNA-based technology. Adding: 'With DNA sequencing becoming faster and cheaper, this is the world we’re all going to be living in.'


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The facts about alcohol

When I go out I usually drink a glass of wine, or two or three... But I do realise too much alcohol is not good for my health and I try to not make it a weekly or even monthly habit. 

Some of you probably don't want to know, but I nontheless I want to show you the facts about alcohol in the form of a infographic to give you an idea. Please do take into account that alcohol is alcohol, which brings a lot more health consequences with it, than non-alcoholic beverages or food.

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In 20 years most types of cancer can be cured

'In 20 years, cancer will rarely be fatal.' This prediction is from the cancer center Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in the Netherlands. According to the representatives of the center there is increasing knowledge about treatments, surgical techniques are becoming more accurate and also methods to identify DNA abnormalities in tumors are getting better.

This allows the doctors to treat patients with a more specific treatment, adapted to their own DNA. The cancer center is expected to cure 90 percent of all cancer cases over 20 years. Now only half of all cancer patients survives. Most of the time they don't get a customized treatment, but a standard treatment that has been tested on a large group of people, but this doesn't mean it will work with every patient.



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Shocking student science experiment about Wi-Fi

Five ninth-grade students from Denmark recently created a science experiment that is causing a stir in the scientific community.

 

It started with an observation and a question. The girls often suffered from headaches, lack of sleep or lack of concentration when they had slept with their cellphones near their heads. They wanted to test the effect of a cellphone's radiation on humans, but their school, Hjallerup School in Denmark, did not have the equipment to do such an experiment. But the girls decided to design an experiment themselves to show the effects of cellphone radiation on a plants instead.

 

The students placed six trays filled with a type of garden cress, into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls' calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone.

 

Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. When the experiment ended the results were obvious. The seeds that were placed near the routers had not grown at all and many of them were completely dead. Meanwhile, the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived.

 

The experiment was such a breakthrough that the girls earned to honors in a regional science competition and their research will be repeated in a controlled professional scientific environment.

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Secret advertising against child abuse

Spanish organization 'Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk Foundation' (ANAR) is commited to preventing child abuse and has come up with a concept to reach out to the victims in a safe and secretive way. ANAR created an advertisement that displays a different message for adults than it does for children at the same time.

The secret behind the ad is lenticular top layer, which shows different images from different angles. So when a tall adult looks at it they only see the image of a sad boy and the message 'Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering.' But when a child will look at the add, from a lower angle, it will see that the boy has bruises on his face and the message reads: 'If someone hurts you, phone us and we'll help you' alongside the phone number of the ANAR foundation.

The ad is designed to empower kids to take matters into their own hands, particularly if their aggresor is right next to them when they stand in front of the ad. A great and worthwile use of lenticular images, as long as the video below isn't seen by all the child molesters as well. 

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Sector Health

Bij de sector health ging niet ineens mijn hartje sneller kloppen toen ik hoorde dat dat onze eerste periode bevatte. ‘Health? Hmmm… ik weet niet hoor.’  Nee, niet wat mij op de eerste plaats een heel erg leuke sector leek. Maar! Daar ben ik zeker op terug gekomen. 

Vooral de eerste week van health verbaasde ik mij er over hoeveel raakvlakken er waren tussen health en QoL. Gezondheid is dus niet alleen gezond eten en sporten. Gezondheid is ook je mentaal/emotioneel goed voelen. En je mentale en emotionele gezondheid word weer enorm beïnvloed door de mensen om je heen (sociale contacten), de mate van succes wat betreft een carrière, je opvoeding etc.

De week van QoL en de eerste week van health hadden dus onverwacht heel veel raakvlakken.

Als iemand nu aan mij vraagt wat kwaliteit van leven is bevat het woord gezondheid al veel meer dan gezonde voeding en beweging voor mij. Ik voel mij gezond als ik mij lekker in mijn vel voel zitten, en dat is niet alleen door middel van voeding en beweging, maar dus ook als ik veel met vriendinnen afspreek, ik een fijne relatie heb met mijn vriend en ouders en als het goed gaat op school. Dit zal voor veel van mijn leeftijdsgenoten nog niet zo zijn. 

Mijn visie op kwaliteit van leven is dus alleen maar versterkt en de kijk er op is nog breder geworden. Ik wil leven voor wat ik belangrijk vind en me minder druk maken over dingen die er toch niet toe doen aan het einde. Dankzij de QoL-week en het verbreden van de definitie van Health heb ik daar een mooi compleet overzicht van en weet ik wat er echt toe doet voor mij, in het leven.