12,000 Ottawa students smother record in hugs

Thousands of students from 10 Ottawa high schools think they may have squeezed into the Guinness Book of World Records with the world’s biggest bear hug.

Organizer Peter Lamothe, who works at St. Matthew Catholic High School, estimated that 12,000 students, teachers and parent volunteers took part in a gargantuan group embrace Friday as part of an effort to raise more than $150,000 for the Ottawa Hospital Foundation, the CHEO Foundation and the Ottawa Senators Foundation.

Byron Shaw, a student at St. Matthew who raised $1,500 said students won’t know until later whether they actually broke the record, but are hoping they succeeded and had fun in the meantime.

“We felt like connected with everyone else and I was in between two Canadian Mounties — it was pretty cool,” said Shaw, who joined thousands of others to encircle the Rideau Canal from the Pretoria Bridge to the Laurier Bridge.

Colorful insects help search for anti-cancer drugs

Brightly-colored beetles or caterpillars feeding on a tropical plant may signal the presence of chemical compounds active against cancer and parasitic diseases, report researchers writing in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The discovery could help speed drug discovery.

Scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and other organizations collected beetles and caterpillars on plants that produce compounds with and without activity against various cancers and parasites. They found that insects showing warning coloration — bright colors and bold patterns — were significantly more common on plants that contained anti-cancer and anti-parasite compounds. There was no difference in abundance of plain-colored insects between plants with and without bioactivity.

US studies show how fruits and vegetables reduce cancer

A growing body of research that shows fruits and vegetables, especially richly colored varieties, can reduce the risk of cancer.

Just three servings a month of raw broccoli or cabbage can reduce the risk of bladder cancer by as much as 40 percent, researchers reported this week.

Researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, surveyed 275 people who had bladder cancer and 825 people without cancer.

They asked especially about cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage. These foods are rich in compounds called isothiocyanates, which are known to lower cancer risk.

The effects were most striking in nonsmokers, the researchers told a meeting being held this week of the American Association of Cancer Research in Philadelphia.

Soldiers shave heads to support cancer kids

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Under a huge tent just outside the medical unit at Camp Liberty, shielded from the blazing sun, soldiers watch and cheer as two men at a time get their heads shaved. Clumps of hair fall to the hot sand below.

But they’re not just fighting the Iraqi heat. They’re showing solidarity with sick kids they don’t even know.

It started with a dare on St. Patrick’s Day 2000, when two guys shaved their heads to support children with cancer. Thus was born the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. In eight years, the awareness and fundraising organization says, events have taken place in 18 countries and the United States, “raising over $34 million and shaving more than 46,000 heads.”

New Skin Cancer Treatment Saves Man

ATLANTA – A man who had been given less than a year to live had a complete remission of advanced deadly skin cancer after an experimental treatment that revved up his immune system to fight the tumors.

The 52-year-old patient’s dramatic turnaround was the only success in a small study, leading doctors to be cautious in their enthusiasm. However, the treatment reported in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine is being counted as the latest in a small series of successes involving immune-priming treatments against deadly skin cancers.

“Immunotherapy has become the most promising approach” to late-stage, death-sentence skin cancers, said Dr. Darrell Rigel, a dermatology researcher at the New York University Cancer Institute in New York who had no role in the research.

Paul McCartney Holds Charity Concert in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine — Tens of thousands of people braved heavy rain and thunder Saturday night to see Paul McCartney perform a charity concert on Kiev’s central Independence Square.

The outdoor show, the first in Ukraine for the former Beatle, was billed as the biggest concert ever in the former Soviet republic. It was broadcast live on national television and on giant screens in five cities.

After a half-hour delay because of the weather, McCartney, who turns 66 next week, came out on the stage and greeted the crowd in Ukrainian, before diving into the Beatles hit “Drive My Car.”

He followed up with a series of Beatles songs, including “Hey Jude,” “Let it Be,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” and “Penny Lane.” The show also included a rendition of “A Day in the Life,” which McCartney dedicated to John Lennon.

McCartney returned for his encore waving a Ukrainian flag and finished off the two-hour show with fireworks, a rendition of “Yesterday” and a musical finale.