Eddy's Good News: Viking shipyard discovered and tree bark could treat cancer

Virgin Radio

1 Jul 2022, 10:02

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!Be sure to listen each day between 10am and 1pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Friday 1 July 2022

Wonderful historical news from Sweden where archaeologists have uncovered the first ever Viking shipyard. 

Say hello to the dig site at Birka, one of many city trading posts that mushroomed up in the Viking age. Archaeologists have previously found much evidence of viking ships and of the tradespeople that serviced them within cities, but never before have they found a dedicated shipyard, outside the protection of city walls. 

They’ve found a dry dock, a longboat launching system, tools and more, all of which paint pictures and raise questions. The data they’re gathering is from the most fascinating part of Nordic history, where over a comparatively short period of time, their culture changed seismically. They reached as far as the Middle East and influenced many cultures including our own and the influence went both ways as they adopted Christianity and became a very real and valuable part of Europe, rather than staying on the fringe.This whole story is unfolding in this fascinating site.

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Encouraging health news from here in the UK where the clever scientists at Cambridge University have been smashing it lately, their name keeps cropping up and the latest breakthrough comes with one of the worst types of cancer, Myeloid Leukaemia. 

This horrible disease has a 20% survival rate after 5 years and a high level of recurrence. 

But scientists at Cambridge Uni have isolated compounds from a Brazilian tree bark which can kill those cells. The problem they faced was that, just like chemotherapy, these compounds killed non cancerous cells too. Human beings deserve new treatments for cancer that have little to no side effects, and this could be one of those thanks to these brilliant chemists who’ve cracked the problem. Cancer cells have genetic markers that identify them as different to other cells. One of these markers is called CD33. By binding the tree-bark compound to an antibody that attacks only CD33, they’ve now got a treatment that passes through the body without harming anything other than the cancer. Brilliant. It’s not clear at this stage how far we are from approval for us to use it, but that’s the heavy lifting done, so let’s keep fingers crossed and stay positive.

Via goodnewsnetwork.org