The Conversation

With Alex Trebek’s recent announcement that his pancreatic cancer is in remission, many people have wondered if this difficult cancer is now easier to treat. Pancreatic cancer remains a major cancer killer, but advances are happening.As a medical oncologist who specializes in treating and studying pancreatic cancer, I’ll try to provide insights, including some from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting now underway.

I work in the field of bioprinting, where the aim is to build biological tissues by printing living cells into 3D structures.Last month I found my Facebook news feed plastered with an amazing story about “the first 3D printed heart using a patient’s own cells”. A video showed a beautiful, healthy-looking heart apparently materializing inside a vat of pinkish liquid.

Australia has changed in many ways over the past two decades. Rising house prices, country-wide improvements in education, an aging population, and a decline in religious affiliation, are just some of the ways it has changed. At the same time, political power has moved back and forth between the two major parties. How much can we attribute changes in political power to changes in who we are? Quite a lot, as it turns out.Finding the ‘average’ electorateWe analyzed election results from 2001 to 2016 and mapped them against data from the census to see how socio-demographic characteristics influence voting patterns, and how this has changed over time.

In the Chinese science fiction film The Wandering Earth, recently released on Netflix, humanity attempts to change the Earth’s orbit using enormous thrusters in order to escape the expanding sun – and prevent a collision with Jupiter. The scenario may one day come true. In five billion years, the sun will run out of fuel and expand, most likely engulfing the Earth. A more immediate threat is a global warming apocalypse. Moving the Earth to a wider orbit could be a solution – and it is possible in theory.

Biogen recently announced that it was abandoning its late stage drug for Alzheimer’s, aducanumab, causing investors to lose billions of dollars. They should not have been surprised.

Testosterone is the main sex hormone in men. It’s best known for its role in the development of male sexual characteristics and physical features, but there are also many surprising and lesser known functions of testosterone that make it an important hormone in health and disease. Identifying whether someone has too much or too little testosterone can predict future diseases and even treat them. But knowing what is high, low or normal for an individual isn’t straightforward.

These days, anybody with an internet connection can be a publisher.That doesn’t make everybody a journalist.This distinction has become more important than ever in light of two recent events.

Surveys show that on issue after issue, women are more liberal than men, save for one: Men are more likely than women to support the legalization of marijuana. Americans are becoming more supportive of marijuana legalization each year but the gender gap remains a constant: While 68 percent of men now support marijuana legalization, only 56 percent of women do.

Taste is a complex phenomenon. We do not experience the sensation through a single sense (as we would when we see something using our sense of sight, for example) but rather it is made up of the five senses working together to allow us to appreciate and enjoy food and drink. Initial visual inspection of food indicates if we would consider consuming it. Then, when eating, smell and flavor combine to allow us to perceive a taste. Meanwhile, the mix of ingredients, texture and temperature can further impact how we experience it.

As measles outbreaks spread across the U.S., our new look at how information about vaccine safety and reliability spreads online suggests that the tide may be turning against the anti-vaccination movement.

A Massachusetts-based company earlier this month cleared the last regulatory hurdle from the Food and Drug Administration to sell genetically engineered salmon in the U.S. Animal genomics expert Alison Van Eenennaam, who served on an advisory committee to the FDA to evaluate the AquAdvantage salmon, explains the significance of the FDA’s move and why some have criticized its decision.1. How is AquaBounty’s salmon different from a conventional salmon?

A liquid is traditionally defined as a material that adapts its shape to fit a container. Yet under certain conditions, cats seem to fit this definition.