Science

A fascinating development via ArsTechnica: As long as there’s lingering HIV, patients must keep taking the drugs, which cause side-effects, make for high prescription bills, and raise the threat of drug resistance. At least, that’s the case for now. In a new study, scientists reveal a possible way to literally hack those lurking viruses out of a person’s DNA strands. …

Via the Washington Post: A group of scientists says it has now reconstructed the history of the planet’s sea levels arcing back over some 3,000 years — leading it to conclude that the rate of increase experienced in the 20th century was “extremely likely” to have been faster than during nearly the entire period. “We can say with 95 percent …

The Washington Post reports: Johns Hopkins announced this week that it had received approval from the nation’s organ-sharing authority to become the first hospital in the United States to conduct transplants involving HIV-positive donors and HIV-positive recipients. “This is an unbelievably exciting day for our hospital and our team, but more importantly for patients living with HIV and end-stage organ …

Karen Ocamb reports at Frontiers: AIDS ain’t over, and neither is the effort to find money and fame by charlatans promising a cure. Friday night, controversial libertarian Bill Maher gave a primetime spot on his HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher to an Australian doctor who claims he successfully treated HIV-positive actor Charlie Sheen through an alternative therapy. Maher …

The International Astronomical Union has announced the names of a slew of exoplanets and stars as chosen by worldwide public ballot. Enter exoplanet Poltergeist, as nominated by an Italian group. Also new to the nomenclature galaxy is the star Cervantes (Spain) and the exoplanet Galileo (Netherlands).  The IAU writes: The votes are in — the names of 19 ExoWorlds (14 …

Thirty years ago today the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center. Today is NASA’s Day Of Remembrance, which also marks the losses of other US space teams. Watch below. Where were you that day?

Watch below. Here’s how they did it: The near-real-time operational GEOS-5 system ingests more than 5 million observations every six hours producing comprehensive analyses and forecasts of the atmosphere each day at 25-km global resolution. This experimental product uses the global mesoscale capabilities of GEOS-5 to downscale the operational product to 6-km global resolution. Subsequent forecasts are launched with this …

Via press release from the ever-combative AHF: Advocates from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) stepped up efforts to ensure that Gilead Sciences, Inc. be held accountable for promoting off-label use of Truvada for use as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV infection. AHF also wants Gilead to be compelled to promote and market use of its AIDS treatment in accordance with …

Scientists at Caltech believe they have confirmed the existence of a massive and icy ninth planet in our solar system. The planet was first speculated upon in 2014 paper which the Caltech team had set out to disprove. Via the Washington Post: They have inferred its existence from the motion of recently discovered dwarf planets and other small objects in …

The use of the medication Truvada as an HIV preventive, a strategy known as PrEP, has not yet been approved by Britain’s National Health Service, a step the FDA took in 2012. Last night the BBC hosted a discussion on the issue in which a representative from the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation expressed his reservations. As you probably know, …

Via press release from Cytodyn: “Essentially, if PRO 140 is FDA approved, the infected person could finally take a break and go on a vacation without having to remember their pills, and the exact times to take them each day. Some have been on their multiple pill regimen day-in and day-out for decades. Upon FDA approval, all they will need …

The Norwegian Medical Association is pressuring the government to ban all tobacco sales to anyone born after 2000. The Independent reports: Marit Hermansen, the president of the NMA, told Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten that access to cigarettes was not a basic human right. “We have long had the policy of phasing out smoking by 2035. This is a measure to achieve …

According to just declassified British documents, Margaret Thatcher opposed an early HIV awareness campaign because people would learn that anal sex is a thing. Via the Independent: Documents released by the National Archives show that the then health secretary Norman Fowler proposed in February 1986 to publish full-page adverts in national newspapers explaining that unprotected anal intercourse carried one of …

The man who convinced the APA to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness died on Friday at the age of 83. Via the Washington Post: In the tumult of the 1960s, psychiatry found itself under siege. Critics said the field lacked scientific standards — failing to help many truly troubled people while medicating or institutionalizing others who suffered from …

It doesn’t feel much like Christmas Eve, does it? The Hill reports: Washington will see highs in the 70s on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, challenging records each day. Other cities will break their records as well — according to The Weather Channel, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Providence, R.I., and Burlington, Vt., had already broken their daily records by early Thursday morning. Temperatures …

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports: A new medicine to control HIV infection may soon become available, if promising results from a Phase 1 clinical trial are confirmed. The drug is an antibody that neutralizes a broad range of HIV strains. The broadly neutralizing antibody, called VRC01, reduced the level of circulating virus more than 10-fold in 6 of 8 HIV-positive …

The Huffington Post reports: SpaceX made history Monday night when it successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit, deployed 11 satellites, and then brought the 15-story booster back to Earth for a soft, vertical landing just six miles from where it took off at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It marks the first time billionaire Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., …

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation today announced that it has placed full-page anti-PrEP ads in gay newspapers all over the country. The full ad is below. They write: A new advocacy ad by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) takes aim at the failure of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the use of Gilead Sciences’ AIDS treatment Truvada to prevent HIV transmission in uninfected …

The CDC today reports that new HIV infections dropped by 19% in the years from 2005 to 2014. But as their headline glumly notes, “progress is uneven” in some communities, especially for black and Latino gay and bisexual men. From their report: Annual HIV diagnoses in the United States fell by 19 percent from 2005 to 2014, driven by dramatic …

The self-described gay geeks of YouTube’s wildly popular ASAP Science channel today released one of their rare singing clips, this one an a capella ode to science set to the tune of the Star Wars theme. Watch out, Pentatonix.