In the UK, more than 330,000 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2011. That compares favorably with the rate of cancer in the US—396 per 100,000 people in the UK vs. 451 per 100,000 in the US.
But even though people in England, where the UK’s largest population is, are less likely to get cancer, five years after diagnosis, only 56% of English cancer patients survive, compared to 65% of American patients.
Find out why on Quartz, published May 5, 2015.
Image by Sam Blackman under CC-BY license.
Among the superpowers people want, a Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak generally comes pretty high on the list. Now even the US Army wants one for its soldiers. They are looking for companies to make them such cloaks in the next 18 months.
Scientific progress has turned many fictions into fact, but true invisibility may be unattainable, Martin Wegener of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany told the New Scientist: “Complete invisibility of macroscopic objects for all visible colors is fundamentally impossible.”
So the army will have to settle for a more workable definition of invisibility instead—perhaps a cloak that remains invisible under certain types of light, for example, making the cloaked soldier appear to be a ghostly image.
Read more on Quartz, published May 8, 2015.
As a kid growing up in India, I remember asking why I got bitten by mosquitoes more than others. To calm down my irritation, I was told that my “blood is sweeter than others.”
That may sound silly, but it’s not completely off-the-mark. Turns out, some people do get bitten more than others, and there are a number of factors that turn them into mosquito magnets.
Read more on Quartz, published May 6, 2015. Also published in Lokmat Times.
Akshat Rathi 