Tag Archives: science

This seems a logical follow-up to yesterday’s shrinkage post.

Interesting research out of Washington University. Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown. The finding is an important step toward developing a vaginal gel that may prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. …

Fascinating study.

From YouTube’s great ASAP Science channel.

Epidemiologists says that the 2013 flu season has arrived weeks ahead of normal and may be notably worse than usual. “I think we’re still accelerating,” said Tom Skinner, a CDC spokesman. Twenty-nine states and New York City reported high levels of flu activity, up from 16 states and NYC the previous week. Flu was widespread in 41 states, up from …

A therapeutic HIV vaccine that temporarily “puts the brakes” on the growth of the virus has shown promise in a small study conducted by researchers in Spain. The vaccine, based on immune cells exposed to HIV that had been inactivated with heat, was tested on a group of 36 people carrying the virus and the results were the best yet …

Via press release from the CDC: Overall, the number of new HIV infections in the United States has remained stable at ~50,000 per year over the last decade. This is the first CDC incidence report to show a statistically significant decline in new infections among African American women (21% comparing 2008 to 2010). While additional years of data are needed, …

Some physicists are trying to determine if we are actually living in the Matrix. In 2003, University of Oxford philosophy professor Nick Bostrom published a paper, “The Simulation Argument,” which argued that, “we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.” Now, a team at Cornell University says it has come up with a viable method for testing whether we’re …

“The theoretical model itself attributes only 10-14 percent of the factors to genetics or epigenetics. That leaves the remaining 85 percent or so of the factors to environmental influences. Common sense would then suggest that even if the unproven theory was completely correct individuals would still seek assistance in living lives congruent with their own personally chosen goals and values.” …

As work progresses on the cocaine “vaccine,” the aim of which is to prevent users from getting high, some are discussing whether it should be made available to parents who want to preemptively give it to their children. Right wingers have “joked” that it should be put into the water supply of public housing projects. The PBS clip below discusses …

“Now these researchers are quite at pains to avoid saying anything like this, but the logic to me seems inescapable: Homosexual children, on this theory, are born evolutionarily and genetically disadvantaged. They have been overexposed or underexposed to testosterone because something has gone wrong in the process of genetic transmission. In other words, they are the product of a genetic …

Researchers at the University of California believe they’ve found another clue to the origins of homosexuality. A group of scientists suggested Tuesday that homosexuals get that trait from their opposite-sex parents: A lesbian will almost always get the trait from her father, while a gay man will get the trait from his mother. The hereditary link of homosexuality has long …

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say they are encouraged by the early results in an experimental leukemia treatment that uses a “disabled form of HIV.” To perform the treatment, doctors remove millions of the patient’s T-cells — a type of white blood cell — and insert new genes that enable the T-cells to kill cancer cells. The technique employs …

From one of YouTube’s most popular educational channels, here’s a wonky explanation of why the five-second rule doesn’t necessarily work.

A federal panel of experts has recommended that all Americans ages 15-64 should be tested for HIV. If their proposal is adopted, insurance companies and Medicare will be required to cover the tests. The draft guidelines were written by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent group that operates under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human …

JMG reader BStewart23 points out this fascinating look at the galaxy.  Click on the “take a tour” button.  Start scrolling around and there goes your work productivity for today. This was created by Google, so naturally it works best in Chrome. (But it also seem to work fine in Firefox.)

It takes 3.5 hours to say and listening to this guy is almost hypnotic. Some compare this clip to hearing a religious chant. Note that he could not complete the reading in one take (despite the advancing clock on the wall).

(Via Buzzfeed)

Source.

British researchers say they may have created a new simple test for HIV that would cost a fraction of existing tests.  A cheap test which could detect even low levels of viruses and some cancers has been developed by UK researchers. The colour of a liquid changes to give either a positive or negative result. The designers from Imperial College …