 medical terms, doctors define stage-four cancer as a spread “from where it started to at least one other body organ”. Therefore, it is known as “secondary” or “metastatic” cancer and the prognosis (survival outlook) becomes bleak. His oncology team recommended surgery to his lungs and thereafter, drug therapy, including antiangiogenic drugs.
For that reason, he instinctively applies FORDEC to his own health and life.
He agreed to more surgery, this time on his lungs. To help him prepare for the surgery, Longo advised a “plunge into an immediate 12-day fast” – water only. The idea appalled Trochon’s friends, including doctors. Reactions ranged from “mild concern to incredulity and even shock”. In other words, they believed that he risked starving to death.
However, many people don’t realise that the human body “is well-equipped to cope with long periods without food”, Trochon writes – as long as they have adequate supply of water.
Longo’s research builds on other studies showing that fasting can make chemotherapy and radiation more effective. Importantly, it does so with far fewer nasty side effects from the toxic treatments.
Thereafter, Trochon explained more at the groundbreaking Rethinking Cancer 2017 conference that he initiated and invited me to cover.
The conference took place at the Gustav Roussy Institut in September that same year. It drew global experts, all dedicated to improving the way doctors treat cancer.
No Need To ‘Slash, Burn, Poison Patients’!
I met Seyfried there, who memorably told me that doctors shouldn’t have to “slash, burn and poison patients just to treat their cancer”. In Flying Against the Odds, he writes that Trochon’s “avoidance of toxic radi­ation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy” in his case was wise. That’s because these “can contrib­ute to rapid tumor recurrence”.
Certainly, emerging scientific evidence shows that most, if not all, cancers suffer “a common defect”, Seyfried says It is one where “fermentation replaces oxygen-dependent respiration for growth”. The success of Trochon’s alternative approach to managing his metastatic tumors is “consistent with the new understand­ing that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease”. In other words, it can be managed “with non-toxic metabolic therapies”.
Trochon also believes strongly that his decision to “intelligently postpone” chemo and radiation was right in his case.  Rather, he is a “cancer warrior”, an “extraordinary human” and an “amazing odds-beater”.
Ultimately, Flying Against The Odds shows how one man “flew directly into the headwinds of cancer”, writes Li. Trochon used “the latest scientific data on nutrition as his Operating Manual”. Above all, he found “new ways to land safely on his journey to healing”.
In the wake of Trochon’s health success, hundreds now reach out to him daily across the globe. Not only cancer patients, as Heather notes, but doctors as well. All have questions “to which today’s medicine doesn’t hold all the answers”.
Trochon has also learned many lessons on his journey. For example, that the best tools in any pilot’s armoury are “thinking quickly and keeping calm”. However, there’s always “an element of luck” and he prays daily that his luck holds out.
Together, he and his wife invite their readers to “fasten your seatbelts and take flight with us”.
So, I recommend anyone interested in health and healing to board that flight. The ticket is Flying Against The Odds.
An Overview of the Ubuntu 11.04 Unity Desktop
The introduction of Unity as the default desktop environment on Ubuntu 11.04 marks a radical shift from the classic GNOME 2.0 desktop shell of previous Ubuntu versions.
Whilst Unity is not entirely uncontroversial, and the classic Ubuntu GNOME desktop remains an option for those preferring not to switch, it is clear that Unity is here to stay and will be the main focus of desktop evolution in future versions of Ubuntu. The goal of this chapter, therefore, is to provide an overview and guided tour of Unity.
Those familiar with the older GNOME 2.0 environment or other more traditional desktop environments may find Unity a little unusual to begin with. After some time using Unity, however, most users will begin to appreciate the clean and simpler interface experience that Unity brings to Ubuntu.
This chapter covers the Unity desktop with the default settings of a newly installed Ubuntu system. The configuration and customization of Unity is covered in detail in subsequent chapters beginning with the next chapter entitled Configuring the Ubuntu 11.04 Unity Launcher and Workspaces.
What is Unity?
Unity was originally conceived by Canonical (the business entity behind Ubuntu) as a solution to the problem of presenting a usable desktop environment on the smaller screens present on so called netbook computers. An initial review of Unity, however, shows that it has much in common with the user interfaces of tablet devices and the developers admit to gaining inspiration from devices such as the iPad. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Unity includes support for multi-touch screens, and the developers of Ubuntu clearly have future plans to target tablet devices with Ubuntu.
Another motivation behind the creation of Unity was to provide a simpler, easier and cleaner user experience. This includes, in part, a move away from the myriad of configuration options provided by the classic GNOME 2.0 desktop shell combined with efforts to make the process of locating applications and files easier for the user.
It is important to note that GNOME has not completely vanished from Ubuntu. In fact, Unity is a user interface shell that sits on top of the GNOME environment. This essentially means that many of the utilities and capabilities of GNOME are still available so there is much that will be familiar to users of previous Ubuntu releases, even if the desktop environment has changed.
Unity vs. GNOME 3.0
While Unity was being developed for Ubuntu the GNOME project was working a new desktop environment in the form of the GNOME 3.0 with a new GNOME shell. This new GNOME release shares many of the same goals as those for Unity. The reason for the creation of Unity as opposed to the adoption of GNOME 3.0 as the default desktop for Ubuntu can probably be traced back to differences of opinion, the politics of the open source community and a desire for Canonical to gain some control over the destiny of the Ubuntu desktop.
Unity 3D vs. Unity 2D
The full version of Unity makes greater demands on the graphics hardware than previous Linux based desktop environments. In fact, it will only run on graphics hardware with support for OpenGL 1.4 or later. Whilst many graphics cards released in the last five years provide this support there are many graphics cards in use today that will be unable to run the “3D” version of Unity. In recognition of this fact, Ubuntu also includes a “2D” version of Unity. The Unity 2D packages are not installed by default with Ubuntu 11.04 so need to be installed if required. If Unity will not run and Unity 2D is not installed, Ubuntu will default to the GNOME 2.0 classic desktop shell.
For details on identifying the capabilities of a graphics controller and installing Unity 2D, refer to the chapter entitled Performing a Clean Ubuntu 11.04 Installation.
The Unity Desktop
Upon logging into the Ubuntu 11.04 desktop on a system with suitable graphics hardware support the Unity desktop environment will appear as illustrated in the following figure:
Before exploring each area of the desktop in detail it is important to first highlight each element and clarify some of the terminology associated with the environment.
The vertical bar located on the left hand side of the screen is the Launcher. It is pre-populated with a number of Launch Items or Launch Icons. These items launch applications, indicate application status or display Dash overlay panels (for example to search for files or applications).
The horizontal bar across the top of the display is the top panel. In the far left of the panel is the Home or Ubuntu button. When clicked a dash overlay is displayed containing shortcuts and a search box. The various icons positioned on the far right of the panel comprise the application and system indicators. These indicate system and application status (such as networking and volume setting) and display menus when clicked with the left hand mouse button. The area beneath the system indicators is where Ubuntu displays on-screen notifications. The indicator showing the speech bubble next to the user name is the MeMenu and provides a single point of access to instant messages, broadcast and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
The area to the right of the Home button is the application menu area (also referred to as the global menu). When an application window has focus and the mouse pointer is moved over the top panel, the menu associated with that application will appear in the top panel rather than in the application window itself. This is a concept with which Mac OS users will be familiar. The remainder of the display, showing the swirling background image, is the desktop where applications appear when they are running and where items such as files, folders and applications may be placed.
Having provided a brief overview of the various elements that comprise the Unity desktop the remainder of this chapter will explore each element in more detail.
The Unity Launcher
The launcher is positioned vertically against the left hand edge of the desktop display. Each item in the launcher will launch an application, display information or present a dash overlay. An entry will also appear in the launcher for any applications that are currently running (regardless of whether a launcher icon was previously present). If more items appear in the launcher than can be displayed the bottom most items