Episode #744
News Items
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: Hubble images
Interview with Bruce Hood
- https://www.amazon.com/Possessed-Want-More-Than-Need/dp/0190699914
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
A patient was treated for Sickle Cell disease with HIV engineered to deliver a corrected copy of the hemoglobin gene to his blood stem cells. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20190917/alabama-man-free-of-sickle-cell-after-gene-therapy?fbclid=IwAR332UHDNfozaNo5B1sdcEZ-_oszunC5ojt_csOMDKwjVvy0UURTjV44Wcg
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Item #2
Science
Researchers have used a bubble of fat to deliver gene therapy through a nebulizer to patients with cystic fibrosis, improving lung function. https://www.nhs.uk/news/genetics-and-stem-cells/gene-therapy-breakthrough-for-cystic-fibrosis/
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Item #3
Fiction
Polio virus was engineered to introduce a new mutation which counteracts the effects of Huntington’s disease in one patient who’s disease progress has slowed significantly.
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘Science doesn’t purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It’s a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It’s a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.’ Isaac Asimov, interview, Bill Moyers’ World of Ideas, October 21, 1988