Thursday, December 13, 2012


Preston Klimley
Earth Science Current Events Report

Plasma Beam Offers New Cure for Cancer

The article that I found was about a new study that showed how plasma, or a gas of electrically charged particles, can be used to possibly cure cancer. The way that this would work would be that the plasma would kill off all of the cancer cells while keeping the healthy ones in perfect condition. Mounir Laroussi who is one of he main people on this new research shared that the rays are amazing and that they are around room temperature so they will not burn holes in anything and you can even touch them with your hand! A study showed that after 10 minutes of treatment over 90 percent of leukemia cells were destroyed. This is great because leukemia is the killer of a third of the children in the world who have cancer. The common methods of treatments have their side effects as must medical procedures do. Two of these are radiation therapy and bone marrow transplants. This cold plasma treatment however is believed to have no long-term side effects. Sending fast paced electrons though gasses such as helium and air creates the plasma for the treatments. The electrons collide the atoms and molecules with such force that the outermost electrons from the gas and the molecules are pulled off. This creates a mixture of both free electrons and ions. It is believed that the treatment causes the cancer cells to kill themselves. Scientists add something called ozone which is an oxygen molecule that is composed of three oxygen atoms. Adding the right amount of this to the cancer cells can push their elevated levels over the top and therefor cause cell-suicide.
This information relates to the people on Earth because there is a very high percentage of the population that has cancer. Can you imagine the lives that could be saved with a risk free procedure that could rid you of the cancer disease? A common conversation has always been that we need to find a cure for cancer because it can save the lives of millions of people on the planet today. Well now we might actually have a cure!
Overall I thought that this was a great article. I loved reading about how it is a huge possibility that we can rid so many people from this terrible disease. I think that only time can show the developments in science and how it has helped the world as we know it. I mean not too long ago cancer was a relatively new disease that people did not know a lot about. The one thing that I would have loved in this article would have been some picture showing how the plasma surgery works. Other that that I thought that it was great. 

3 comments:

  1. I thought this was very interesting. You did a good job explaining the science behind the invention. I thought it was really interesting that a Plasma Beam which can cure cancer is lukewarm, to the point where touching it without injuring ones self is possible. I also thought you did a good job of including reasons why this is such an important topic. I’d skimmed an article about this subject earlier, but I didn’t pay much attention and from your written summery I learned how the process actually worked. I thought that the implications of how this invention could affect the world was incredibly interesting. If you wanted to take it a step further I would recommend mentioning how successful other methods that we have used up until now have been.

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  2. One of the things Preston did well was present the information in a chronological order of importance. He starts out with a general overview and then goes into details. Another thing he did well was present the complicated information in an easy to understand way. He also did a good job in his transitions to different topics of the potential cure. I learned some very important information from reading this blog report. The main thing that I learned was that a new effective treatment for cancer has been discovered. I also learned that the use plasma ray makes this potential cure possible. This is an interesting thing to think about in my opinion because I always thought it would some type of medication that would cure cancer. Now they have a ray of plasma to do it. The last thing I learned was that the plasma rays don’t kill the cancer cells; they cause the cancer cells to kill themselves. This is an interesting concept that, once again, I would have never thought of. It seems to be an effective way to get something done by not really inflicting anything in the body itself. Besides some edits and grammar the review was done very well.

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  3. Preston, this was a well written reflection. We always hear stories about new cures for cancer but I've never heard of using plasma to kill cancer cells in someone with a healthy, perfect, condition. This type of cure kills 90% of the leukemia cells. I always like to hear about studies for Leukemia because my friend, same age as me, and her mom were both diagnosed with Leukemia. Leukemia is a very common cancer in children every day. This treatment has no long-term effects like previous treatments. It was cool to learn about how they made and used the treatment. This reflection taught me a lot. As I said earlier, I love to hear about new treatments for Leukemia as it connects with my personal life. I agree that it’s huge to find new cancer treatments. I also thought it was so cool too to think that we can touch the rays without getting hurt or burned. I agree it would have been to cool to see picture of the cancer cells like Ms. Davies had done in her presentation on her cancer research. :) Your reflection was well written and I'm glad I read it.

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