I've come to terms with not understanding cancer, and I'm slowly beginning to understand why other people don't understand cancer as well.

For background, much of the greatest biology these past three decades have seen have mostly been stimulated by the study of this field. Hartwell loved, and so did Nurse and Hunt -- Horvitz, Brenner, and Sulston had different words to mince about it, and although they're not in the same ranks (at least in the eyes of the Nobel committee), Jacks and Weinberg too have their own words to mince.

But -- and this is my big feel-good realization of the week, yea, the year -- the cure for cancer is elusive, and it's not just (well, maybe necessarily) because I'm not bright enough.

The first argument, of course, is syntactical. When someone says "I have prostate cancer" (as someone of my gender might), after the condolences and the sincere wishes for a speedy and full recovery, one is left standing exactly where one started. That is, no one enquires further, asking: "What type?" Social norms aside, this is precisely the lack of questioning that has been hindering the cure for quite some time. Cancer treatments are usually blanket treatments that will try to kill anything that should be growing like a cancer -- usually, these blanket treatments are targeted more specifically towards the general region, but at the end of the day, it's like trying to perform surgery with a butcher-knife.

The real question to ask is "What type?" and the answer is far more difficult to answer than it might seem at first. That is, although one might have prostate cancer, the source of the cancer might be very very different. It's a bit analogous to someone with an arm that hurts -- although the symptom is very much the same, it would seem fairly ridiculous to cure a broken arm by rubbing Icy-Hot on it, or curing a pulled muscle by putting it in a cast for a few months. Some people need Icy-Hot, some people need casts, and the trick is in the diagnosis.

Modern medicine, however, has only breached very little into this diagnosis -- i.e., they can tell you that you have cancer, and also where exactly that cancer is -- but that's a bit like someone complaining that they hurt, and that the hurt is in their arm (or prostate, as the case may be)...

The true crux of the matter is actually (with all due respect to those wonderful physicians in the crowd) diagnosing the cancer -- it's cause. I suppose I could mean a lot of things by this -- the source, the cell of origin, the cellular pathway that's been disrupted, and its manifestations on the tissue/organ level. All these are really interesting questions, and the majority are really difficult to answer.

Oy -- Sudeep, what do you mean? Manifestations are a good place to begin. Every individual has two copies of every (well, let's say most) gene in the genome. Often, if one of these copies have something wrong with it, the individual can get by. Days will pass, and one day as they're microwaving something, or sunbathing, or doing anything else us humans love, a stray UV ray will "break" the other copy, resulting in a cell that doesn't have a working copy of this gene -- suppose this happens in multiple places in the body (not an unreasonable hypothesis for severe radiation exposures). Anyhow, the cells that have two broken copies go beserk, but go beserk in different ways. That is, a kidney cell doesn't have the same machinery to go beserk as does, say, a nerve cell, or say, a skin cell. And sometimes this going beserk doesn't even do anything, depending on the tissue type.

But what happens when it does? Suppose two individuals get two tumors? How do we know if the same thing went wrong in both tumors? How do we even know where the initial cell was that went wrong?

I guess I'm asking far too many questions to be at all informative here -- but it's all to say the following: cancer most certainly is not a black box -- I mean, okay, yeah, it really is, but on a superficial level, we know the questions that we need to ask to proceede to the next level. What's even more exciting is that they're interesting questions in their own rite: how does one determine cellular lineage especially when the cell lines (for all we know) don't have a set pattern of differentiation, and may in fact be de-, then re-differentiating? &c., &c. Whether or not this leads to a cure is still murky -- but it's not an infeasible path.

I obviously prefer home made food, but that doesn't mean I don't care about processed and other ready made food. This is the stuff that's feeding America, and somone ought to pay attention. Here, for example, you can see my brief thoughts about C2 cola, and here my review of the sugar free baby ruth.

The target of my eating this week has been 7-Eleven's relatively new "gourmet" sandwiches, called "Big Eats Deli". They claim to be made with artisanal bread, fresh meats, and interesting cheeses. In an area where one local bakery sells a single sandwich for $8.25, 7-Eleven has come into the market at between $2.99 and $3.49. That's the good news.

And the sandwiches aren't appalling either. The basic offerings, such as smoked turkey & Jack cheese on Wheatberry bread, are perfectly serviceable - made relatively close by in Brockton with ingredients as advertised. No, the supposed southwestern mayonnaise wasn't that exciting, and the bread had generally gone a bit gummy, but I've had worse sandwiches at places purporting to serve sandwiches. That 7-Eleven is matching even some sandwich shops is pretty impressive.

And as much as it worries me to say this, the Mediterranean Style Turkey with Pepper Supreme spread is actually decent. Like, I'd have it again. The tomato and basil bread was fresh and tasty, there was some sort of tapenade (yes, I'm serious), and the pepper sauce was an interesting mix of bell peppers and some sort of cheese. No, I wouldn't pay any more than $3.50 for it, but at that price it's a pretty good deal. If you're hungry and desperate, 7-Eleven has moved into the market with at least one relatively impressive offering. Go for it.

The New York Times today has this profile of Gordon Ramsay, probably the most famous (and best) chef currently active in the United Kingdom. You can see my just-after-the-fact post about my visit to his 3 Michelin starred restaurant last summer here.

On a slightly different note, the fact that my law firm paid for that meal came as close to a breach of fiduciary duty as I saw all summer. Whether it convinces me to work there or not in the end is a more interesting question. We'll see.

If Will feels somewhat guilty to be behind Waddling Thunder in the book challenge, I feel very guilty to be behind them both while not even in law school, especially since the second book I've read, the first volume of Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia trilogy, is so short.

Now, I like Stoppard (almost) as much as the next guy, I was disappointed by Voyage. The classic Stoppardian elements were all there--the clever repartee, the witty speeches with philosophical undertones, the games played with time and narrative--but they never seemed to come together to form a coherent whole. The big speeches, in particular, seemed stuck into the story like songs into a musical.

Perhaps it was because the work is the first play of the trilogy, but there just seemed to be too much stuff stuck in the story, with none of it really going anywhere. Neither character nor plot seemed to have been given much space to develop. Hopefully, a satisfying story will develop over the course of the next two plays.

Amber Taylor is designing the ideal library; meanwhile, the New York Times has an article about public-school libraries. Years ago, I argued that public school libraries should be eliminated and folded into genuine public libraries (except perhaps for the computers. which have their own role).

Now I think that there is some place for elementary school libraries like the ones described in the article, since many of the children are likely to want only a small subset of books, and since they are not terribly mobile. I still think that the resources devoted to public high school libraries could be better spent on public library/branch systems.

In response to Amber's post, I have minimalist demands--

1) A library should be open as often as possible, for those 2 A.M. emergencies when you need a copy of Hedda Gabler ASAP.

2) There should be a good online catalog, so that users can find, request, and recall books from afar with ease.

3) The library should have as extensive an Inter-library-loan system as possible, even if slow.