Breast Cancer Study Could Change How Early Growths Are Treated - English Listening Lessons.mp3 Breast Cancer Study Could Change How Early Growths Are Treated Posted by admin on June 4th, 2011 at 07:36am This is the VOA Special English Health Report. Have you ever felt lumps under the skin on the sides of your neck when you were sick? Those might be lymph nodes. They can get swollen and painful but their job is to fight infection. Lymph nodes are part of the body’s defenses known as the lymphatic system. This complex system throughout the body makes and transports a protective fluid called lymph. Lymph is made of white blood cells, proteins and fats. In a patient with breast cancer, the cancer can spread to the large number of lymph nodes under the arm. Doctors have traditionally removed many of these lymph nodes in the hope of removing all the cancer. But the latest research finds nothing to gain by removing so many lymph nodes. Doctors have two choices when breast cancer starts to spread. They can do what is called a sentinel node biopsy. They remove the main growth and one or two lymph nodes nearest to it. Or they can take more aggressive action and remove a lot of lymph nodes. But that can lead to shoulder pain and permanent swelling of the arm. Dr. Armando Giuiliano at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, was a leader of the study. He found that a sentinel node biopsy can be enough to eliminate all of the cancer. And the patient does not need to stay in a hospital to have it done. Dr. Giuliano and researchers at other American cancer centers studied almost nine hundred breast cancer patients. In each case, the cancer had spread to no more than two lymph nodes. Half of the women had the traditional surgery. Doctors removed an average of seventeen lymph nodes. The other half had the simpler operation with just one or two nodes removed. Then both groups received radiation treatment and chemotherapy drugs. Doctor Giuliano says rates of survival five years later showed that the less invasive operation was just as successful as the more aggressive action. ARMANDO GIULIANO: “The five-year survival was about ninety-two percent regardless of which operation. And, wonderfully, women who had the sentinel node biopsy alone did just as well as the women who had the more radical operation.” The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some experts say the findings could change the way surgeons treat early breast cancers that have spread to the lymph nodes. But other doctors say they want more proof before they make a change. And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report. You can get more health news along with transcripts and MP3s of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. And we invite you to visit the all- new mobile version of our site on your phone or other device. I’m Pat Bodnar. A Social Network Aims to Speed Up Progress in Science - English Listening Lessons.mp3 A Social Network Aims to Speed Up Progress in Science Posted by admin on June 2nd, 2011 at 07:33am This is the VOA Special English Education Report. A few years ago, a university researcher was having problems with an experiment that involved medical imaging. His adviser and his friends had no solutions. The researcher was Ijad Madisch at Harvard in Massachusetts. IJAD MADISCH: “I was so frustrated. I said, you know, there has to be something online where I go, where people can, you know, present themselves as a scientist, and where they put their information about their research and their publications and you can search for it.” The solution was to start a scientific network to connect researchers and share information. ResearchGate is similar to another social network developed at Harvard — Facebook. But Mr. Madisch says the purpose of his site is to make scientists more productive. IJAD MADISCH: “My goal: to win the Nobel Prize. And I really believe in that. Like, if we think that ResearchGate will accelerate research in all the different fields, it will change the speed of science significantly in the future. So i definitely do believe that ResearchGate could win the Nobel Prize for that one day.” Investors liked the idea, including a former Facebook executive and the same investment group that put money into Twitter. So far, nine hundred thousand people have signed up as members of ResearchGate. CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS: “Logging in … ” One of those users is Caroline Moore-Kochlacs at Boston University. Her profile page shows her picture and her specialty — neuroscience. It also lists her doctoral adviser and the work she has published. She can follow other researchers and click onto group pages that discuss different subjects. CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS: “Let’s see what’s going on in the computational neuroscience group today.” She also uses Facebook but says people almost never discuss science there. She says on ResearchGate she can ask questions and learn about what other researchers are working on before they publish their results. She can also learn about recently published science. CAROLINE MOORE-KOCHLACS: “The scientific literature is so huge at this point, that it’s really impossible to get through everything in your topic area. People really rely on hearing it from other people.” ResearchGate developer Ijad Madisch says he knows his site will only prove valuable if scientists use it to help each other. But not every user is pleased with it. Kim Bertrand at the Harvard School of Public Health is an epidemiologist — someone who studies the spread and control of diseases. Ms. Bertrand says she finds more value in her own offline network of researchers and advisers than in this online network. KIM BERTRAND: “Sometimes I get these e-mails that are like: ‘Dear Sirs: I’m writing a dissertation on public health. Any suggestions? Please advise.’ I don’t need that.” And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report. Do you use a social network for work or just for fun? Post your comments on the VOA Learning English page on Facebook or at voaspecialenglish.com. There, you can also download program transcripts and MP3s and get podcasts. I’m Steve Ember. Microsoft Says Google Blocks Competition in Europe Search Market - English Listening Lessons.mp3 Microsoft Says Google Blocks Competition in Europe Search Market Posted by admin on May 30th, 2011 at 08:50am This is the VOA Special English Economics Report. Microsoft has fought legal battles with officials in Europe and the United States over competition in the personal computer market. But now Microsoft is accusing Google of being anti- competitive. A complaint to the European Commission accuses Google of unfairly controlling the Internet search market in Europe. Google is already talking to the commission about the issue and says it is happy to explain to anyone how its business works. Google also faces other issues. Gmail users in China began reporting problems with Google’s e- mail service in late February. The problems came as news of the revolutions in the Arab world filled the Internet and there were online calls for protests in China. Google said the government was interfering with its e-mail service. (SOUND) Last week, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called the accusations unacceptable. But Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said the company stood by its earlier comments. JESSICA POWELL: “This is a government blockage, carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail.” Google is the world leader in Internet search. But in China, the biggest search engine is Baidu. And this week, China’s largest Internet media company, Sina, dropped Google’s search engine from its website. Sina says it is using its own technology. An estimated four hundred fifty million Chinese are online — about half of all Internet users in Asia. Last year, Google said a cyberattack from China had attempted to get information from the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Google also expressed concerns about censorship. So Google relocated its Chinese search engine from the mainland to Hong Kong. The company is also facing new problems at home. A federal judge in New York has ruled against its plan to put millions of books online. Google wants to create a digital library of all the world’s books. It reached a one hundred twenty-five million dollar deal in two thousand eight with groups representing writers and publishers. Google agreed to create a system to pay copyright holders when their works are used online. But Judge Denny Chin rejected the proposed settlement. He said it gives Google monopoly control of the book search market. But he left open the possibility for a new plan. On a similar issue, Baidu says it has removed almost three million documents from its library. Writers have complained that Baidu did not have permission for their works to appear on its document-sharing site. And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter and available online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember. . Breast Cancer Study Could Change How Early Growths Are Treated - English Listening Lessons.mp3 Breast Cancer Study Could Change How Early Growths Are Treated Posted by admin. radical operation.” The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some experts say the findings could change the way surgeons treat early breast cancers that have spread. American cancer centers studied almost nine hundred breast cancer patients. In each case, the cancer had spread to no more than two lymph nodes. Half of the women had the traditional surgery. Doctors