Dani Bercovich PhD, Geoffrey Goodman PhD and M. Eric Gershwin MD
Immune function is the most basic physiological process in humans and indeed throughout the animal kingdom. Interestingly, the vast majority of textbooks of physiology do not include a chapter on immunity. Our species survival is dependent on the diversity of the immune response and the ability for antigen presentation and effector mechanisms to be enormously promiscuous. As physicians, we are likely all too aware of how brief our life span is and the myriad of diseases and events that shorten it. It is not surprising that we question where our life comes from and our relationship within the universe. Many hypotheses have been offered regarding the likelihood that intelligent life exists elsewhere. We propose that such issues be discussed in the context of basic biologic observations on earth, such as the sight of a dense flock of tens of thousands of starlings maneuvering in rapid twists and turns at dusk before settling in trees for the night. The mathematical likelihood for life elsewhere was proposed by Frank Drake in a classic equation whose 'thesis' has stimulated the search for alien civilizations and the nature of life. A fundamental gap in this equation is the presence of a diverse immune response, a feature essential for survival of Life, presumably also extra-terrestrially.
Ron Lavy MD, Yehuda Hershkovitz MD, Lital Keinan-Boker MD and Ariel Halevy MD
Background: Gastrointestinal malignancies comprise a broad spectrum of neoplasms and have a high overall incidence. The incidence rates in Israel vary among ethnic groups due to different risk factors.
Objectives: To investigate incidence trends of these cancers in Israel in both Jewish and Arab ethnic groups in order to better understand the risks in those groups.
Methods: This study is based on data published by the Israel National Cancer Registry and the Central Bureau of Statistics. We compared statistics between ethnicities and genders. We examined the eight most common gastrointestinal cancers, focusing on colon, rectal and gastric cancers.
Results: Between 1980 and 2012 there was a decline in the incidence of gastric cancer in the Jewish population; in contrast, a significant increase occurred in Arab women, but there was no significant change in Arab men. Colon cancer showed a relative decrease in incidence in the Jewish population, but an increase in the Arab population. A decrease in the incidence of rectal cancer in the Jewish population and an increase in the Arab population was observed.
Conclusions: Gastric, colon and rectal cancers exhibit differences in incidence and outcome between Jewish and Arab populations in Israel. These differences were not observed in the other five types of less common gastrointestinal cancers.
Francesca Riboni MD, Stefano Cosma MD PhD, Pino Gino Perini MD and Chiara Benedetto MD PhD
Marina Khvan MD and Sandro Vento MD