The White Pill: Defeating One of the Worst Cancers
The White Pill: Defeating One of the Worst Cancers
white pill #9 // awesome lung cancer treatment results, the asteroid flying by earth next week, new drop of incredibly detailed images of the sun, utility-scale space farms, etc
Readers, can you believe it’s the ninth issue of the White Pill, where we round up all the most fascinating, evocative, inspiring developments in space, tech, medicine, engineering, and big ideas?
Nick and I had a good time putting this one together. Our excellent news this week is about something very promising that happened when a Yale-led research team tried a new therapeutic approach to lung cancer. In space news, we have an incredibly interesting new study connecting frequency of supernovae to the origin of life on Earth, a new theory about the interstellar comet ‘Oumuamua, a stunning image of Saturn ring ice towers, super detailed new pics of the Sun’s surface, and more.
After this week’s White Pill Investment Index, where we track funding going to companies doing interesting, forward-thinking things, we discuss a telomere-related advance in aging science and a potential link between schizophrenia and lupus, among other things, in our section on medicine. After that, in our energy and engineering section, we go over a new electric RV on the market, new tech that could enable solar space farms, a $46m DOE grant, and a gene drive for stray cats.
And as always, some fun stuff at the end.
First, some most excellent news…
New therapy approach cuts late stage lung cancer mortality in half, IN PEOPLE (NOT MICE). 1.8 million people died of lung cancer last year. The survival rate for late-stage lung cancer patients is low, even with cutting-edge treatment methods. But that could be primed to change. A new study led by researchers at Yale University shows that, after surgical removal of lung tumors from late-stage cancer patients, daily treatment with the drug osimertinib reduces overall risk of death by 51 percent. And the effects are lasting: “After five years, 88% of patients who took the daily pill after the removal of their tumor were still alive, compared with 78% of patients treated with a placebo.” Excellent news. (The Guardian)