This week's hot news item--HIV prevention that works. From Superbug blog at Wired:
There’s huge news today in the results of a major drug trial for HIV prevention, but the news comes balanced with significant cautions and caveats. For the first time, researchers have shown that if men who are not infected with HIV take routine doses of AIDS treatment drugs, they can markedly reduce their risk of becoming infected....moreNew Symphony of Science video. From Bad Astronomy blog:
John Boswell, a musician from Washington State, is famous on the web for creating the Symphony of Science — musically autotuned talks by scientists and skeptics discussing the nature of science, reality, and wonder. These are impossibly catchy videos, worth watching over and again. The first, featuring Carl Sagan, was called A Glorious Dawn, and was simply amazing. It quickly went viral, becoming huge on the web. John has just released his seventh in the SoS series, called A Wave of Reason, and like all of them is profound and lovely. And you may recognize one or two of the people in it…moreAntimatter created at CERN. From Symmetry Breaking blog:
The ALPHA experiment at CERN has taken an important step forward in developing techniques to understand one of the Universe’s open questions: is there a difference between matter and antimatter? In a paper published in Nature today, the collaboration shows that it has successfully produced and trapped atoms of antihydrogen....The antihydrogen programme goes back a long way. In 1995, the first nine atoms of man-made antihydrogen were produced at CERN. Then, in 2002, the ATHENA and ATRAP experiments showed that it was possible to produce antihydrogen in large quantities, opening up the possibility of conducting detailed studies. The new result from ALPHA is the latest step in this journey....moreNeanderthals grew into adults faster. Why? From 80 beats blog:
But what’s so great about growing up slowly? A long childhood, the thinking goes, allows for greater mental development...If one accepts the idea that humans out-competed Neanderthals, then it makes sense: Evidence has shown they had brains as large or larger by volume than early humans, but perhaps their haste in growing up precluded mental development that would have allowed them to compete with early humans. Slow growth is a risk because it allows more time for misfortune to strike children before they reach childbearing age. But apparently this risk paid off for early humans...moreEvolution rap video. From Genomicron blog:
"Baba Brinkman, evo-rapper extraordinaire, is looking for support to finish an exciting project to create videos for his Rap Guide to Evolution. Most of the funding has come from the Wellcome Trust, but the last of the production costs are being assembled through Crowdfunder. Help if you can!"...moreNominations for the toughest, bravest scientists in history. From Notes and Theories blog:
In November 1908, Henry Head, a balding, bespectacled physician at the London Hospital, published a scientific paper in the journal Brain describing his meticulous investigations into how sensation was affected when peripheral nerves were cut and left to heal. To compile data for the article, entitled "A human experiment in nerve division", Head took his bag of surgical instruments and turned them on himself. Over the past few weeks, I've been collecting stories about people like Sir Henry Head. And not just those who, for lack of a convenient alternative, became the subject of their own experiments. I was interested in scientists and engineers who have, one way or another, proved themselves to be tougher than the average...see the list
