
Gwen Ifill has died - westi
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/business/media/gwen-ifill-dies.html
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julienchastang
As a regular watcher of the PBS NewsHour and occasionally Washington Week,
I'll miss Gwen's smile, sharp wit, and humor. RIP.

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001sky
The baby boomers seem have TV news gigs monopolized to the detriment of the
country.

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hoov
Are you familiar with her work? I think she's was breath of fresh air compared
with other baby boomers in the industry. I, for one, will miss her.

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001sky
Quite so. But the point is more about path dependency in media appointments.

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Curnee
Could you elaborate? Apologies if i am just being dense, but I don't follow.

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heydenberk
Gwen Ifill was a legend in her own time and the world is worse without her in
it.

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anigbrowl
More than just a reporter, she has been the managing editor of PBS' two most
prestigious news programs for many years. A dreadful loss.

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hyperbovine
Completely agree, I think she was the smartest and most insightful person on
the NewsHour. She had a knack for asking penetrating questions that neither
the viewer nor the interviewee saw coming. Just the sort of person we need
more, not less of, in the Trump era. Very saddened by this unexpected news.

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eevilspock
It's worth reading what appears to be her last piece, which provides some calm
perspective that we could use right now:

[http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/end-
sight](http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/end-sight)

It is titled _The End is in Sight_. I wonder if it had a double meaning? :(

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trhway
tangential question, may be there is some doctor here who can explain - i'm
not a doctor and just from pure technical/mechanical point of view i don't
understand why for example we can't just insert 2 thin, needle thin like,
probes (similar to laparoscopy only much thinner and more flexible), one with
video camera and LED and one with IR laser, ultrasound guide it to the tumor
and burn the tumor small piece by small piece. Wouldn't it be better than
radiation for example?

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jbandela1
The issue with cancer is that it has the ability to metastasize - that is to
travel to other parts of the body and grow there. Thus even if we completely
remove that tumor that we see initially, but there could still be millions or
billions of cancer cells that are now in other parts of the body but have not
grown into tumors that are big enough to see yet. Also, in your scenario,
depending on the type of cancer - you can actually spread cancer cells along
the path of the needles when you remove them.

In addition, some areas of the body make such surgery tricky because the
cancer cells are very close and intertwined with critical structures. This can
be especially true in brain cancers.

But there are techniques like you suggest that are used in cancer.
[http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n3/full/nrc3672.html](http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n3/full/nrc3672.html)

Thanks for taking the time to make a suggestion. Like many areas, one of the
ways breakthroughs in medicine occur is that someone with a fresh perspective
suggests something that the experts are too close to see. I hope that this
will someday happen with cancer.

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tominous
I'm not a doctor but have been dealing with cancer in the family. I think we
will soon see much more use of fine-needle techniques in cancer treatment in
novel ways.

Perhaps the next big thing will be an oil-and-gas engineer adapting drilling,
guiding and visualisation technologies to the very small scale.

Directly killing the cancer cells is often futile because you can't kill them
all, but we could also use this tech to:

* take samples of the the tumour and its microenvironment to analyse and guide treatment

* inject biological agents into tumours (e.g. T-Vec)

* inject "broad-spectrum" immunotherapies (ipilimumab, various cytokines) which may be too dangerous to use systemically

* insert radioactive grains or auger targets as an adjunct to enhance immunotherapy

* apply local electroporation to enhance the uptake of chemotherapy and breakdown of tumour cells, again to enhance the immune response (e.g. ImmunoPulse)

* take samples in order to grow personalised treatments in the lab for later injection (e.g. dendritic cell therapy)

* provide safer options for dealing with complications like pericardial effusions.

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darmok
I first became familiar with her work in the early 90's when she was writing
for the New York Times. I loved her writing style and always read her
articles. She was just as good on TV - sharp, intelligent dialog without the
yelling you get on other shows. She'll be missed!

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bogomipz
She was a real talent in both print journalism as well as television on both
Washington Week and The News Hour. Her and Judy Woodruff made such a wonderful
team as co-anchors. This is very sad news. She will be missed.

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lisper
I'm not sure which shocked me more: Trump's victory, or this. Another bright
light in the firmament has been extinguished. RIP, Gwen. You will be sorely
missed, now more than ever.

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bayofpigs
Gwen was one of the best journalists to ever live. One of the best compliments
is after all these years I still can't be 100% sure I know what Gwen thinks
about various issues.

It's an amazing achievement that she could be so objective for so many years.
All others should learn from her example. What a tragedy, the world lost one
of its best. RIP.

