Young men are 55 per cent more likely to die of skin cancer than women, regardless of the severity of the tumour, a new study has found.
The finding suggests there are fundamental biological differences between melanoma in men and women. Looking at melanoma cases among a population of young, white men and women over 20 years, the researchers found that men accounted for 40 per cent of the cancer cases, and 64 per cent of the deaths, LiveScience reported. Overall, men were 55 per cent more likely to die of melanoma than women of the same age, after adjusting for other factors such as a tumour’s type, thickness and location, researchers said. The study revealed a “striking disparity” between men and women in terms of survival.
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‘Star Trek-style’ magnetic shield for astronauts
London: Scientists are developing a Star Trek-style magnetic space shield that could be used to protect astronauts from harmful radiation given off by the sun.
Researchers believe the lightweight system being developed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, Oxfordshire, could potentially be used on Nasa missions to Mars or the moon. Cosmic rays and high-energy storms given off by the sun — sometimes equivalent to a year’s worth of radiation on Earth — have been a constant worry to space scientists.
They could be extremely harmful to astronauts, leading to vomiting, diarrhoea or even organ failure, the Sun newspaper reported.
The system involves creating an almost weightless magnetic shield — dubbed a “magnetosphere” — similar to the one that surrounds the Earth. — PTI