FASTER, PLEASE: Discovery opens door for breast, prostate cancer treatments. “A team of Western Australian cancer researchers interested in the strong link between hormones and cancer have discovered three new molecules that may have an important role to play in future breast and prostate cancer treatments.”

QUESTION: Should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Be Tried as an Enemy Combatant?

USA TODAY POLL: Public Support For Gun Control Ebbs.

“So much of the support for gun control is emotional, following the Newtown tragedy,” says Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. The December shooting at the Connecticut school left 20 children and six educators dead. “The longer you get away from there, people start thinking of other issues. They start thinking about terrorism or jobs or immigration, and not surprisingly, then some of the momentum behind gun control starts to fade.”

The Boston Marathon bombings last Monday also may have had an effect, he speculates. “It wouldn’t be shocking if people sitting in their homes in Massachusetts cities and towns thought to themselves, ‘Boy, I wish I had something to protect myself with if a terrorist came through the door now.'”

Ya think?

COMPETENCY-BASED EDUCATION: Credit Without Teaching. “Competency-based education makes many academics uncomfortable.” Well, yeah.

DAVID SIROTA ON THE EDGE OF HIS SEAT: Canada busts terrorist plot in Quebec. But there’s this: “That sounds like al-Qaeda’s MO — attacking transportation targets for maximum visibility.” Well, stay tuned, David — there’s still hope!

UPDATE: For Sirota, hope dies, again.

Police identified the suspects as Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser of Montreal and Toronto. They were arrested Monday morning and are facing criminal charges including conspiracy to carry out an attack against, and conspiring to murder persons unknown for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.

Assistant RCMP Commissioner James Malizia, the officer in charge of federal policing operations, said the alleged plot was “al Qaeda-supported.”

More at the link.

MORE: Plot was “al-Qaeda supported” by al-Qaeda elements “located in Iran” consisting of “direction and guidance.”

TECHNOLOGY: Boston police chief: facial recognition tech didn’t help find bombing suspects. “The work was painstaking and mind-numbing: One agent watched the same segment of video 400 times.”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Don’t We Have Hoverboards.

Technologies I’d like to see: (1) Antigravity; (2) Reactionless thrusters; (3) Truly efficient energy storage.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Measuring College Prestige vs. Cost Of Enrollment. “In these decisions, though, emotion often wins out, and it can lead to the slippery slope of excessive borrowing. . . . In two much-discussed studies about the value of a degree from an elite college — one with people who graduated in the 1970s and the other with more recent graduates — Alan B. Krueger, then an economist at Princeton University, and Stacy Berg Dale, a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, found that equally smart students had about the same earnings whether or not they went to top-tier colleges.”

Plus, underscoring something Peter Thiel said a while back — the higher education bubble isn’t about excessive optimism, but about fear: “Prestige has always been part of the equation, but he said he had expected parents to start looking for value in colleges after the 2008 financial collapse. Instead, parents have come to see the elite universities as the only way to give their children a chance at success. They feel jobs are hard to come by and companies are only going to look to hire at the elite universities.”

OH, HERE’S ONE MORE PROGRESS KENTUCKY STORY I SOMEHOW MISSED: Obama’s chief fundraiser attended White House meeting with Progress Kentucky leader. “Appearing on Fox News, DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse sought to distance his party from the group, telling Megyn Kelly he ‘never heard of’ Progress Kentucky or Riley — an assertion that seems less plausible as more facts are known.”

WHITE HOUSE: Tsarnaev Won’t Be Treated As Enemy Combatant.

IT’LL BE INTERESTING TO SEE HOW IT HOLDS UP: Nissan Leaf Enters NYC Taxi Duty. Should be a pretty friendly environment for an EV. But the interior’s kinda small, especially in the back. Here’s my Nissan Leaf review. But this bit from the story isn’t encouraging: “On the average, Fromberg says, city taxis cover 70 to 100 miles in a single shift. Based on the Leaf’s EPA-estimated 75-mile average range, drivers probably will need to visit a quick-charging station at least once during a shift.”

Not long ago, I talked to an AAA battery-truck driver who has an electric-vehicle quick-charger on his truck; he said it was one of only two in the country, the other being in California. He also said that it doesn’t really work.

RETIREMENT PLANNING: Is A $3 Million IRA Sufficient For Retirement?

Apparently $3 million is “an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement.” We’ve written before about the false promises of annuities and annuity calculators. But clearly Obama needs a refresher. . . . To have his $205,000 standard of living, you would need at least $4.7 million at age 65. Your account value would have to continue increasing to ensure it kept up with inflation.

You may believe the government needs to collect more money in taxes. But this proposal is an awful way to do it.

Read the whole thing.

PRAGER UNIVERSITY: Faith vs. Reason.

THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN: “Previously owned U.S. home sales unexpectedly dropped in March.”

TRACY QUAN ON BEING EXOTIC. “The idea that every American tourist having sex with an Asian person in Bangkok is some kind of colonizer? That’s almost offensive. I know that foolish idea is floating around. It drives me nuts. These are tourists! There have always been tourists.”

Plus: “As someone with a sex work background I’m shocked at how business-like online dating is.”

RAND PAUL TO HARRY REID: Suspend Immigration Bill Until National Security Considerations Studied. “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sent a lengthy letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today asking to table the immigration reform bill until the Boston attacks are better understood and national security considerations are addressed in the legislation.”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Inspector General: IRS Fails to Comply With Mandated Reduction in Improper Payments — 25% EITC Fraud Costs $14 Billion/Year.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Your Voice Could Be Costing You Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PROGRESS KENTUCKY SCANDALS: First, in case you missed it in all the hoopla last week: Alleged McConnell-Bugger Visited White House. “Days before Progress Kentucky launched a Twitter offensive against Mitch McConnell, its executive director met with White House officials. . . . The White House visitors log, showing Reilly met with administration officials Dec. 5th, appears to have been signed in by Victoria McCullough, a staff assistant to Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett.”

Plus: Progress Kentucky Leader Met With Potential McConnell Opponent.

And: Alleged Mitch McConnell Bugger Applying For Journalism Jobs. Looking for a job as a partisan operative at an ostensibly nonpartisan operation? He’ll fit right in.

HOW THE MASSACHUSETTS SPECIAL SENATE RACE has been affected by the Boston Bombings.

BARRY RUBIN: ‘Mysterious Motive’: Cover-Up of Boston Attack’s ‘Why’ Begins.

ONE LESSON FROM BOSTON: A 7-Round Magazine Isn’t Enough. Neither is 15, which is why all those cops carried more. “If someone is shooting back, it’s a whole new ballgame.”

AMERICANS STILL buying up guns at a record pace.

SO MUCH FOR CARING ABOUT THE WORKING MAN: Teamsters head Hoffa tries to squash his own employees’ union.