The Good News Show

We call CBS Sunday Morning the "Good News Show." It is the one and only news magazine type show I have found that focuses on all positive, uplifting news stories. Good news actually does exist out there even if it's hard to find on most news shows.

We DVR the show each Sunday morning and watch it sometime later, usually with the kids. They love it too and were the ones who gave it its nickname. In addition to the positive stories, each episode ends with footage of some beautiful, nature scene accompanied by nature's soundtrack: chirping birds, whispering wind, babbling brooks. It's a 30-second, peaceful reminder of the simple beauty that abounds in our country and a pleasing offset to the chirping and babbling that occurs on most other news-type shows.

The Good News Show had a very interesting and amazing story this past Sunday. Seems a 17-year-old high school student has potentially found a cure for cancer in her spare time. Angela Zhang wrote a research paper which she shared with her chemistry teacher. The paper contained a recipe for curing cancer. Quoting from the CBS news interview,

Angela's idea was to mix cancer medicine in a polymer that would attach to nanoparticles -- nanoparticles that would then attach to cancer cells and show up on an MRI. so doctors could see exactly where the tumors are. Then she thought that if you aimed an infrared light at the tumors to melt the polymer and release the medicine, thus killing the cancer cells while leaving healthy cells completely unharmed.

Since her initial research paper, Angela's idea has been tested in Stanford University labs where the tumors in mice have almost completely disappeared when exposed to Angela's recipe. Maybe by the time Angela finishes her future doctorate, we'll know if her recipe works on human cells.

Now if that's not good news, I don't know what is.

See the whole story at the CBS Sunday Morning site.