Cancer vaccines
癌症疫苗
Target acquired
找到了靶点
May 29th 2008
From The Economist print edition
2008年5月29日
《经济学人》印刷版
It may become possible to vaccinate against brain tumours
针对脑肿瘤的免疫接种即将成为可能
继续阅读“[2008.05.31] Target acquired 癌症疫苗”
[2008.05.31] Storking the ancient skies 巨鹳行空
Palaeontology
古生物学
Storking the ancient skies
巨鹳行空
May 29th 2008
From The Economist print edition
[2008.01.17] Snow place like home 冰天雪地 宾至如归
Antarctic science
南极科考
Snow place like home
冰天雪地 宾至如归
Jan 17th 2008 | THE SOUTH POLE
写于2008年1月17日|南极
From The Economist print edition
译自：《经济学家》印刷版
America’s new research station at the South Pole is officially opened
美国新建的南极科考站正式开放
MOVING house is always traumatic, and the odd tear would have been forgivable as the flag came down over America’s old base at the South Pole. It was handed from person to person along a line of scientists and support staff like an egg being passed between penguins. Slowly, it made its way past the marker that represents the exact point of the Pole, and then on to its new staff outside the third incarnation of the Amundsen-Scott station that is the home of America’s scientific effort at the Pole. This new station, which formally opened for business on January 12th, took almost 20 years to design and build, and cost $174m. It will house researchers from fields as diverse as neutrino astronomy, cosmology, seismology and atmospheric physics.
举家搬迁难免令人黯然神伤，看着国旗从美国南极站老基地上缓缓移下，即使潸然泪下也是情有可原。科学家及后勤人员排成一线依次传递国旗的情景，俨然一幅雌雄企鹅接替孵卵的画面。国旗缓慢地途经南极极点的标志物，然后在阿蒙森－斯科特站的第三代南极站点外的新旗杆上冉冉升起，这第三代科考站就是美国科学家在南极艰苦奋斗的家园。这座新的科考站于1月12日正式营业，设计和施工用了大约20年，花费达17400万美元。科考站将迎接来自各个领域的研究人员，研究领域涉及：微中子天文学、宇宙学、地震学和大气物理学。
继续阅读“[2008.01.17] Snow place like home 冰天雪地 宾至如归”
[2008.01.03] How to live forever 长生不老 青春永驻
Abolishing ageing 阻止衰老
How to live forever
长生不老 青春永驻
Jan 3rd 2008 写于2008年1月3日
From The Economist print edition 译自：《经济学家》印刷版
It looks unlikely that medical science will abolish the process of ageing. But it no longer looks impossible 医学阻止衰老进程似乎是不太可能。但也看到了一丝希望。 
Stephen Jeffrey斯蒂芬•杰佛里（图）
“IN THE long run,” as John Maynard Keynes observed, “we are all dead.” True. But can the short run be elongated in a way that makes the long run longer? And if so, how, and at what cost? People have dreamt of immortality since time immemorial. They have sought it since the first alchemist put an elixir of life on the same shopping list as a way to turn lead into gold. They have written about it in fiction, from Rider Haggard’s “She” to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. And now, with the growth of biological knowledge that has marked the past few decades, a few researchers believe it might be within reach.
正如英国经济学家约翰•梅纳德•凯恩斯所言：“从长久来看，我们终有一死”。此言千真万确。但是，有没有一种使长久变得更长久的方法可以让短期延伸呢？如果可以的话，怎样做呢？以什么为代价呢？人们自古以来就梦想着永垂不朽。自从第一个炼丹师把长生不老药和点石成金的方法等同看待之日起，人们就开始为了长生不老孜孜探索。从瑞德•哈葛德的《她》到弗兰克•赫伯特的《沙丘》，人们在科幻小说中也多有描述。如今，随着过去几十年成绩显赫的生物知识不断发展，一些研究人员相信阻止衰老并非遥不可及。
[2007.3.15]Evidence-based ethics: Logical endings
Evidence-based ethics
循证伦理学
Logical endings
逻辑终端
Mar 15th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Computers may soon be better than kin at predicting the wishes of the dying
也许不久之后，计算机将比亲属更了解人临死时的愿望
IN 1947 a psychologist called Theodore Sarbin made a controversial suggestion to a medical conference. He proposed that a doctor is really just a machine whose purpose is to make actuarial judgments about the best treatment for a patient. And not a very good machine, at that, for Sarbin also suggested that medicine would benefit if “we could replace [the doctor’s] eyes and brain with a Hollerith machine”.
在1947年的一次医学大会上，心理学家西奥多•沙宾（Theodore Sarbin）的意见引起了争论。他提出，医生不过是一台机器，其目的是为了对患者获得最优治疗方案作出保险精算的判断，而且还不是一台很好的机器。沙宾指出，如果“我们能够用一台霍勒里斯机器换掉（医生的）眼睛和大脑”，医学才会让人获益。
[2007.3.8]Cancer screening: Seeing is not always relieving
Seeing is not always relieving
眼不见心不烦
Mar 8th 2007
From The Economist print edition Screening for lung cancer may do more harm than good
肺癌筛查可能弊大于利
SOMETIMES you can know too much. The aim of screening healthy people for cancer is to discover tumours when they are small and treatable. It sounds laudable and often it is. But it sometimes leads to unnecessary treatment. The body has a battery of mechanisms for stopping small tumours from becoming large ones. Treating those that would have been suppressed anyway does no good and can often be harmful.
有时候你可能知道得太多了。健康人群癌症筛查的目的是发现可治疗的小肿瘤，这似乎是值得称赞的，而事实常常也是如此。不过，有时它会导致不必要的治疗。机体自身有一套阻止小肿瘤生长的机制，对那些可用自身机制加以抑制的肿瘤采取治疗非但无益，反而可能造成危害。
继续阅读“[2007.3.8]Cancer screening: Seeing is not always relieving”
[2008.01.24] Nearly there
Artificial life 人造生命
Nearly there 即将到来
Jan 24th 2008
From The Economist print edition
The penultimate step towards the creation of artificial life has just been announced 通向人工生命的倒数第二步公诸于众
LIKE a striptease artist in front of an eager audience, Craig Venter has been dropping veils over the past few years without ever quite revealing what people are hoping to see: the world’s first artificial organism. He has been discussing making one since 1995, when he worked out the first complete genetic sequence of a natural living organism. And, after a lot of hard graft and blind alleys, he and his team have almost got there. As they report in this week’s Science, they have replicated the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, the species that was the subject of that original sequencing effort. It is not actual life, but it is surely the tease before the last veil finally falls away.
就像热切观众面前的脱衣舞“表演艺术家”一样，克雷格·文特(Craig Venter)正在揭去——世界第一个人造组织——这一过去几年人们翘首以盼而又不为人知的神秘面纱。自1995年以来他就一直在讨论制造人造组织这一话 题，其间他破解出第一份自然活组织的完整基因序列。经过大量艰苦工作和碰壁，他和他的小组几乎达到了目标。根据他们在本周《科学》杂志上发表的报告，他们 复制了尿道支原体的基因组，最初基因测序工作就是利用这种支原体进行的。它们还不是真正的生命，但这就像最后一件衣服落下之前的挑逗一样。