Show description

Although advertisements typically extol lower complication rates with robot-assisted surgery, large independent studies that rigorously compare the two approaches have not been conducted. In addition to impotence, radiation therapy of the prostate often ends up damaging the rectum and bladder because it is hard to avoid radiation scatter, which hits the front of the rectum and the base of the bladder. Moreover, rectal bleeding and fecal soiling are frequent but commonly underreported side effects of both radiation therapy (including radioactive seed implants) and surgical approaches.

Scientists openly wonder if the next generation of particle collider— at higher energies, larger sizes and greater expenses—will prove too ambitious. Humanity may simply refuse to pay for it. A typical experiment at the LHC might include more than 3,000 researchers. At Fermilab, Hogan has assembled a loosely knit team of 20 or so, a figure that includes senior advisers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan who do not participate in day-to-day work at IN BRIEF Space may not be smooth and continuous.

By Marc B. Garnick PARVIZ M. POUR Photo Researchers Inc. • 38 Scientific American, February 2012 © 2012 Scientific American Slow-growing: Prostate cancer cells (shown in a color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph) will not cause problems if left alone in most, but not all, asymptomatic men whose tumors are found after a screening test. © 2012 Scientific American Marc B. Garnick, a physician and researcher, is a prostate cancer expert at Harvard Medical School and Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, as well as editor in chief of Harvard’s Annual Report on Prostate Diseases.