Category Archives: Opinion

Imagine a Cancer Drug That Kills All Cancers. Too Bad You Can’t Get It.

Imagine if you will that there is a drug that would kill almost any type of cancer, has very few side-effects and is relatively cheap. Actually, you don’t need to imagine it as it does exist and it’s called dichloroacetate or DCA. The problem is no pharmaceutical company will touch it because they can’t patent it and they can’t make ridiculous amounts of money on it. So much for compassionate corporations eh?

What DCA does is cause cancer cells to switch from using glycolysis to generate energy back to using the mitochondria for energy production. This causes the cells to revert from their immortal cancerous state where they commit suicide (apoptosis).

One problem with the drug is that it changes the way researchers need to look at cancer. Instead of being caused by a genetic mutation, they would have to change their point of way and admit that metabolism can spark cancer. My old mentor told me that the real definition of cancer is the abnormal growth and rate of growth of cells. Nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, cancer research is a big business and imagine the problem that would arise if we had a simple and inexpensive answer to many cancers? Lots of jobless researchers I guess.

After reading about this drug in the British journal New Scientist last week I think we need to change the name of drug companies from pharmaceuticals to harmaceuticals. The tag fits them better.

Internet Browsers – You’ve Got to Get Rid of Explorer

After years of frustration, I finally dumped Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which should be renamed into Internet Deplorer. It bombs all the time, it is spyware’s favorite browser and it just doesn’t work as well as most of its competitors. I’ve tried Opera and liked it but not enough to make the switch. The browser I decided on is Firefox.

This browser is as easy to use as you can imagine and it has a boat load of excellent add-ons. My favorite is Stumble! After you download it (after you get Firefox, it asks you which add-ons you want), it asks you what fields of interest you have. When you’re done with that just hit the Stumble! button and it randomly selects sites from around the world for you to enjoy. Give it a thumbs up or down and they will begin to learn what your real interests are.

You can easily import all of your valuable bookmarks from Explorer in a few seconds.

The other must have add-on is Cooliris. When you drag your cursor over to an internet link on any web site, a little blue box appears. Drag your cursor over to it and a separate temporary window appears that allows you to see the link without opening another tab or window.

All in all, I heartily recommend you dump Explorer and start using Mozilla’s Firefox. You’ll be absolutely thrilled you did.

It Makes You Think

The late Carl Sagan was known for his observational skills and the way he put our world into perspective. When commenting about a picture taken by the spacecraft Voyager I back in 1990 which showed earth from billions of miles away he said the following which I found very profound. Think about it this weekend.

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

To see that “dot” go to http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/pale_blue_dot.htm. Makes one humble doesn’t it?

JigsawBar – My Opinions

My friend Pat Sullivan, founder of JigsawHealth and ACT Software, made an offer on his blog site www.PatSullivan.com for bloggers to judge the taste of his health bar JigsawBar. Well, I received my two boxes today and I have to say I am very impressed. These are THE best health bars I have ever tried.

They are well constructed nutritionally and taste really good. Both the coconut-almond and the chocolate were home runs in my opinion. Amazingly they made it with no soy (which is a great thing), casein or gluten and contain a number of nutrients, omega 3 fatty acids and have the right balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

Pat, you did well. Props to you, your staff and the manufacturer this is something I will recommend to all my friends.

Be Safe While Driving

I just got into my office and felt an overwhelming need to write this blog as I just seen the aftermath of a horrific car accident between an SUV and a Ford Mustang Convertible.  It was icy this morning here in Reno and I was taking it easy, keeping well below the speed limit even though I drive an all-wheel drive Saturn Vue. Drivers were zooming past me, running red lights, acting kind of stupid if you ask me.  When I came up the hill, not 1/2 mile from my office I saw that a big white Suburban had just crossed the median and slammed into a blue Mustang.  It couldn’t have happened more than 2-3 minutes before I got there. When I looked over, I saw the ashen looking face of a young man, no more than 30 years old, folded in half, not moving. The sight is something I shall never forget. Next to the car was the driver of the SUV looking panicked and horrified, not knowing what to do, almost begging for help.

The police had just gotten there and I can still see the face of the officer; shocked, yet controlled, trying to see if there was anything he could do. It didn’t look like there was anything to do barring a miracle.

I’d just like to say, please take it easy out there.  Slow it down a little, watch what your doing, pull over if you need to use your cell phone and take care.  This morning, two young men woke up like any other day. Now, sadly, one will never wake up again and the other will awaken every morning knowing what happened today. I can’t help but wonder what life would have been like for those two men had they taken it a little slower.

Be careful out there.  Life is a truly precious thing.

Soda Consumption Causes Obesity

Seemingly coming from the University of the Obvious, a series of papers are hitting the journals this week further indicting soda drinking with the growing problem of obesity in children. Of course, if you want to believe in the industry’s side of the story, nothing of the sort is happening. Guess there are people willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder despite hurting people with their stances.
CNN’s website has an excellent article which explains the issue clearly and spotlights those with opposing viewpoints (all industry shills of course). The evidence though is so clear and striking that trying to deny the link between the increase of soda intake and obesity is to deny that your nose is used to breathe.
The estimates of the cost to society of the growing epidemic of obesity are staggering. Increases in type II diabetes even in children is growing quickly, something directly related to the increase in soda intake. Not only should every can of soda have a warning label on it, every school in the United States should ban it on campus. I would venture to guess that test scores would even improve more than adding additional teachers would.
How long will the soda industry keep claiming all is well with their products? Probably as long as big tobacco did with smoking.

Hello world!!!

Welcome to MarkSchauss.com.  I hope my blog interests you and makes you think about issues I feel pasionate about.  As my title says, I will strive to never be boring and always try to be provocative.  For those of you who know me personally, you know how I tell it like I see it. 

Keep coming back everyday as I’ll be posting new ideas, thoughts and messages.