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Herbal Compound Helps Reduce Tumor Cells in Mice

Research assistant Katie McCullough holds up a mouse for Jake Litvag, 16, to see inside a Washington University lab (AP)
Research assistant Katie McCullough holds up a mouse for Jake Litvag, 16, to see inside a Washington University lab (AP)
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Herbal Compound Helps Reduce Tumor Cells in Mice

Research assistant Katie McCullough holds up a mouse for Jake Litvag, 16, to see inside a Washington University lab (AP)
Research assistant Katie McCullough holds up a mouse for Jake Litvag, 16, to see inside a Washington University lab (AP)

The active compound in Chinese herbs called emodin, also found in some fruits and vegetables, can reduce colon cancer cells in mice, according to researchers at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Physiologists conducting this study involving mice say this is likely due to emodin's ability to reduce the number of pro-tumor macrophages (a type of immune cell that can promote tumorigenesis). The new study was published by the American Physical Society (APS) ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology.

The researchers studied two groups of mice, one of them was treated with emodin. The results showed that mice treated with emodin "exhibited lower protumorigenic M2-like macrophages in the colon."

The team hope their findings could be used soon in human therapeutics.

Colon cancer is the third most common cancer in men and women, and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is expected to cause more than 52,000 deaths in the US in 2022.

According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer risk factors include obesity, physical inactivity, diets high in red meat, smoking, and alcohol use.

“Approximately 70% of colon cancer cases can be attributed to diet or other lifestyle factors. This study raises hope that daily consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables containing emodin could prevent colon cancer in humans,” said Angela Murphy, co-author of the study from the department of pathology, microbiology, and immunology at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

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The Surprising Reason Why There Are No Human Remains in the Titanic

The RMS Titanic sank at 2:20 am Monday morning on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
The RMS Titanic sank at 2:20 am Monday morning on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
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The Surprising Reason Why There Are No Human Remains in the Titanic

The RMS Titanic sank at 2:20 am Monday morning on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
The RMS Titanic sank at 2:20 am Monday morning on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The Titanic, a symbol of hubris and human tragedy, has been a source of fascination for more than 112 years.

But the fact is, the sunken ocean liner was more than just movie fodder or a deep-sea explorer’s holy grail, it was a very real ship on which more than 1,500 people died.

And yet, whilst experts, using the most sophisticated submersible and underwater filming equipment, have found some extraordinary relics from the wreckage, they have never found any skeletons or bones.

“I’ve seen zero human remains,” James Cameron, director of the iconic 1997 film, told the New York Times back in 2012.

“We’ve seen clothing. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains.”

Given that Cameron has visited and explored the wreck some 33 times (and claims to have spent more time on the ship than the ship’s captain), if he hasn’t seen any human remains we can assume that there really aren’t any there. So why is this?

It’s a question that has recently been perplexing Reddit users but, luckily, it has some relatively simple answers.

Whilst there was a notoriously insufficient number of lifeboats on the ship, many passengers and crew members still managed to put on life jackets. This means that they remained buoyant even after they succumbed to the freezing cold waters of the Atlantic.

And so, when a storm followed the sinking of the “unsinkable” ship, they were likely swept away from the site of the wreckage and carried further away over subsequent weeks and years by ocean currents.

“The issue you have to deal with is, at depths below about 3,000 feet (around 914 meters), you pass below what's called the calcium carbonate compensation depth,” deep-sea explorer Robert Ballard explained to NPR back in 2009.

“And the water in the deep sea is under saturated in calcium carbonate, which is mostly, you know, what bones are made of. For example, on the Titanic and on the Bismarck, those ships are below the calcium carbonate compensation depth, so once the critters eat their flesh and expose the bones, the bones dissolve,” he said.

Nevertheless, some people believe that there may still be some preserved bodies in sealed off parts of the ship, such as the engine room.

This is because fresh oxygen-rich water that scavengers rely on may not have been able to enter these areas.

Nevertheless, more than a century since the tragedy, it seems likely that such searches for remains would be fruitless.