Saturday, August 21, 2010

Cancer Cured Already?

Tetrahydrocannabinol; THC; MarinolImage via Wikipedia
THC
It would seem that back in the seventies, researchers discovered that several ingredients in the illegal substance marijuana (scientifically known as cannabis), namely delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta9-THC), delta8-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta8-THC), and cannabinol (CBN), reduce the size of cancer tumors!


The research was published in the September 1975 issue of Journal of the International Cancer Institute, which can be found here on PubMed or here in full-text on United Kingdom Cannabis Internet Activist.


Moreover, this article is not alone. In 2010, an article entitled "Cannabinoids reduce ErbB2-driven breast cancer progression through Akt inhibition" was published in the Volume 9 of the Molecular Cancer journal, the full-text of which can be read here.  In summary, the authors conclude that "these results provide a strong preclinical evidence for the use of cannabinoid-based therapies for the management of ErbB2-positive breast cancer."  At the bottom of the article, you'll notice the many articles relating to cannabis and cancer on which the paper was based.

The two articles mentioned here are just a couple of the many that have been written on the subject.  Is it possible that cancer has a cure? Is it possible that the cure has been overlooked or ignored?

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Renting a Car Could Be More Dangerous Than You Thought

Sign - Turn Left for McCarran Rent-a-Car Cente...Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr
Apparently, no car rental business is required to "ground" cars currently affected by manufacturer recalls, as reported by Adam Goldfein here.  Yes, you heard correctly: you could rent a car that has been recalled, and it is entirely possible that the renter has not bothered to take the car in to be fixed!
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I Live Next Door... Can I Borrow a Cup of Numerical Recipes?

Numerical Recipes in C
One thing led to another, and I stumbled across an online copy of "Numerical Recipes in C" (2nd ed., 1992)!  It covers topics ranging from sorting algorithms to numerical integration techniques.  Man I love the internet... not sure what people did before it, though.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Java: Pass by Reference or Value?

Java (programming language)Image via Wikipedia
This article explains in clear detail why I've been feeling a trifle bit confused when writing certain Java methods.  Sometimes changes made to an object within a method are retained (or maintained) in the calling method as if Java passes by reference, but sometimes the changes are lost as if Java passes by value.  I've had this question before, and thought that I understood that Java passes by reference.

However, the situation is not as straightforward as that, and this article explains why!  Java does pass by reference, but the reference inside a method is a copy of the reference in the calling method.  Thus changes to the object referenced by the reference will "stick," but try to swap the objects inside a method and nothing is retained outside of the method!  It's because only the references are swapped, but the references are only copies of the original references; thus the original references are unchanged.

Runge Kutta for Game Physics

So I'm working on building a physics simulator in Java.  I did well in the AP physics class back in high school, and aced the algebra-based physics classes at Georgia State, but implementing them into a program was a little different (due to the need to know and update all properties at any time, as opposed to calculating one or two unknowns from a set of known values).  So, of course, I started searching the internet for solutions.

Runge-Kutta methods for the function y'=sin(t)^2*yImage via Wikipedia
Anyway, while researching I stumbled across a really neat article on something called Runge Kutta order 4, or simply RK4.  It's a method of approximating the solutions to differential equations, and was invented (or developed, if you rather) around the start of the 1900s by, you guessed it, two mathematicians name Runge and Kutta.  So here is the full article for those of you interested in game physics; check it out!

The article does a wonderful job of explaining how RK4 works by stripping away all of the mathematics that might scare potential learners out there, so if you feel as though you might be in that group, check it out anyway!