AIDS Vaccine Nearing Reality at Emory
Web Editor: Keith Whitney
Last Modified: 3/8/2007 7:49:17 AM
The world could have a new vaccine designed to kill the AIDS virus in as little as three to four years according to an Atlanta-based group working on the vaccine.
It is a scientific advance that could save tens of millions of lives, and it is being developed on the campus of Emory University.
The work has been going on quietly for the last 15 years. But now it appears headed for the bell lap in the race to prevent the disease.
And the Atlanta-based group may be way ahead of the rest of the world.
The GeoVax lab at Emory is smaller than many garages. And yet the small modular building may be where the battle to end the reign of one the world's biggest killers could be won with a vaccine to prevent AIDS.
"We're getting results back that indicate we're getting very strong immune responses in these individuals these people who received our vaccine," said Don Hildebrand, the president and CEO of GeoVax Inc., the company spearheading the research in collaboration with Emory, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health.
The vaccine uses a decoy virus with some of the genetic material of the aids virus but not enough for anyone to ever get the disease itself from the shot, according to Dr. Harriet Robinson, Ph. D., of the Emory Vaccine Center.
"It exposes your immune system to a pathogen like a virus or bacteria so before you've seen it you set up memory cells,” Dr. Robinson said, “and then these memory cells mobilize should you get the actual infection."
The test trials have been so successful that the vaccine is now more than a year ahead of schedule.
"Actually another two trials are starting later this year using different combinations of our vaccine and different administration programs,” said GeoVax CEO Hildebrand. “And following that presuming everything goes well we'll be starting a phase two program at the end of the year."
The vaccine works using a one-two pharmaceutical punch to prime the body then kill the virus.
“It raises both antibodies that can block the virus and it raises white blood cells called t cells that can kill the virus infected cells,” said Dr. Robinson. “So it really has two methods of controlling an HIV/AIDS infection once it enters the body."
The vaccine’s success with the simian AIDS virus has been nothing short of remarkable. Not only did the vaccine prevent the infection, it kept it under control for the monkeys that already had it, putting it in a kind of remission.
Researchers believe the same benefits await human subjects.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Chic-fil-a Field Day
Holy Cow! Meat-loving calf eats Indian chickens
KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - When dozens of chickens went missing from a remote West Bengal village, everyone blamed the neighbourhood dogs.
But Ajit Ghosh, the owner of the missing chickens, eventually solved the puzzle when he caught his cow -- a sacred animal for the Hindu family -- gobbling up several of them at night.
"We were shocked to see our calf eating chickens alive," Ghosh told Reuters by phone from Chandpur village, about 240 km (150 miles) northwest of capital Kolkata.
The family decided to stand guard at night on Monday at the cow shed which also served as a hen coop, after 48 chickens went missing in a month.
"Instead of the dogs, we watched in horror as the calf, whom we had fondly named Lal, sneak to the coop and grab the little ones with the precision of a jungle cat," Gour Ghosh, his brother, said.
Local television pictures showed the cow grabbing and eating a chicken in seconds and a vet confirmed the case.
"We think lack of vital minerals in the body is causing this behaviour. We have taken a look and have asked doctors to look into the case immediately," Mihir Satpathy, a district veterinary officer, said by phone.
"This strange behaviour is possible in some exceptional cases," Satpathy said.
Hundreds of villagers flocked to Chandpur on Wednesday to catch a glimpse of Lal, enjoying his bundle of green grass for a change.
"The local vets said the cow was probably suffering from a disease but others said Lal was a tiger in his previous birth," Ajit added.
(c) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Wazzup, Brits!
LONDON — Princely pranksters William and Harry have been accused of recording a bogus message on Queen Elizabeth II's answering machine.
The pair were asked for help by their regal gran when she was baffled by the technology.
But she was reported to be mortified when she heard the end result.
"Hey wassup!" their message said. "This is Liz. Sorry I'm away from the throne."
Click here for FOXNews.com's Europe center.
"For a hotline to Philip, press one. For Charles, press two," the recording continued. "And for the corgis, press three."
According to The Daily Star, the Queen saw the funny side later when she thought about which VIPs might have heard the message.
But her private secretary was not so amused.
The paper says he almost fell off his chair the first time one of his calls was put through to the voicemail.
The Queen, who is 80, has been taught by Prince William and Prince Harry how to send text messages on her mobile phone.
She was given her first mobile phone in 2001 by the Duke of York.
But she banned servants at the royal palaces from carrying phones on duty, after becoming annoyed at their ring tones.
The ban was reportedly prompted by several mobile phones ringing during a major banquet held for foreign dignitaries.
The pair were asked for help by their regal gran when she was baffled by the technology.
But she was reported to be mortified when she heard the end result.
"Hey wassup!" their message said. "This is Liz. Sorry I'm away from the throne."
Click here for FOXNews.com's Europe center.
"For a hotline to Philip, press one. For Charles, press two," the recording continued. "And for the corgis, press three."
According to The Daily Star, the Queen saw the funny side later when she thought about which VIPs might have heard the message.
But her private secretary was not so amused.
The paper says he almost fell off his chair the first time one of his calls was put through to the voicemail.
The Queen, who is 80, has been taught by Prince William and Prince Harry how to send text messages on her mobile phone.
She was given her first mobile phone in 2001 by the Duke of York.
But she banned servants at the royal palaces from carrying phones on duty, after becoming annoyed at their ring tones.
The ban was reportedly prompted by several mobile phones ringing during a major banquet held for foreign dignitaries.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Sloth becomes our favorite Sin
| Written by Rene Millman | |
| Monday, 05 March 2007 | |
| Cornwell, 22, recently graduated from college and spent around $3,000 designing the "Beer Launching Fridge" which is activated via remote control. "There is a slight danger of being hit in the head with a flying can but this danger decreases the more you use it." Cornwell said almost all of the raw materials for the refrigerator were purchased from McMaster-Carr, some motors came from Jameco, and the switches/potentiometer were purchased at RadioShack. "In total the beer launching refrigerator uses 3 limit switches. Two of which are triggered when the elevator reaches the top or bottom of its travel, and one is triggered when the catapult arm is fully cocked. I also have a potentiometer that is connected to the rotating catapult platform." "The voltage across the potentiometer is read by the microcontroller to sense the angle of the catapult platform." There is a video of the fridge in action here.
 |
Train Miracle
Elderly woman unscathed after being run over by a train
Mon Mar 5, 9:29 AM ET
LISBON (AFP) - An elderly woman has walked away without a scratch after being run over by a train in Portugal.
Maria Delores Ramos, 77, slipped as she attempted to cross the railway near her home in the northern village of Barroselas, the daily Jornal de Noticias reported.
She could not get up on her own as she suffers from arthritis in her legs, so she sat in the middle of the track to wait for someone to pass by.
But when a train approached she decided to lay down after her frantic waving failed to get the attention of the conductor, Ramos told the newspaper
"I started to pray and ask God for forgiveness for my sins. But when I saw that the first carriage passed over me and didn't touch me, I realized I was safe. And I survived," she said.
The train stopped a little further ahead and the conductor got out of the train and helped Ramos, a mother of seven, to crawl out from under one of the carriages.
"Other people quickly arrived and raised me off the ground and held on to me but I told them I didn't need need them to hold on to me, that I could stay up on my own," she said. "I can brag that I survived being run over by a train."
Mon Mar 5, 9:29 AM ET
LISBON (AFP) - An elderly woman has walked away without a scratch after being run over by a train in Portugal.
Maria Delores Ramos, 77, slipped as she attempted to cross the railway near her home in the northern village of Barroselas, the daily Jornal de Noticias reported.
She could not get up on her own as she suffers from arthritis in her legs, so she sat in the middle of the track to wait for someone to pass by.
But when a train approached she decided to lay down after her frantic waving failed to get the attention of the conductor, Ramos told the newspaper
"I started to pray and ask God for forgiveness for my sins. But when I saw that the first carriage passed over me and didn't touch me, I realized I was safe. And I survived," she said.
The train stopped a little further ahead and the conductor got out of the train and helped Ramos, a mother of seven, to crawl out from under one of the carriages.
"Other people quickly arrived and raised me off the ground and held on to me but I told them I didn't need need them to hold on to me, that I could stay up on my own," she said. "I can brag that I survived being run over by a train."
Cool In School
Tech strikes back against Plaid Avenger
The unorthodox textbook will receive a warning sticker and undergo other changes.
By Greg Esposito and Albert Raboteau
The Roanoke Times
The basic message of the Monroe Doctrine was, "Don't mess in our hemisphere, b------!"
And Portugal "got screwed pretty damn good" in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.
Those are some of the lessons being taught by "Plaid Avenger's World," the new textbook in a geography course at Virginia Tech.
John Boyer, a popular instructor who wrote the book and teaches the course, said it's an experimental approach aimed at getting students to better learn the material. Chock-full of foul language, recipes for cocktails and more than a few cultural stereotypes, the book features a central character -- the Plaid Avenger -- who travels to different parts of the globe and explains culture and history in 21st-century college student vernacular.
The book made its debut in Boyer's Geography 1014: World Regions course this semester. Boyer said he doesn't like using textbooks in his classes because they're too dry and boring. With help from students, he wrote the book in three months last year.
Boyer, who resembles the avenger in both appearance and dress, said the book has received a positive response from the roughly 600 students in his course. No students or parents have complained to him. The only negative feedback he has heard is from "a few very squeaky wheels" among the faculty, he said.
Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said the administration did hear a complaint about the book from a faculty member a couple of weeks ago. Since the situation arose, some changes have been planned for the book, Boyer said.
A warning sticker will be added to the book noting that some of its language is explicit. A disclaimer, urging underage readers not to drink alcohol and all readers to respect diversity and to stand up for racial and sexual equality, is also expected to be applied.
The university's name appears on the book's title page, implying that the school was involved in the publishing, which is not the case, so that will be concealed with the sticker and removed in future printings.
Boyer said he planned to make some changes in the book for future editions that would make it more marketable.
Hincker said the university does not review the content of textbooks written by its faculty. If a professor assigns a book he or she wrote, the work must be reviewed but "the issue here is not content," Hincker said. "It's to ensure that a faculty member is not setting himself up as a publisher and then requiring students to purchase his book."
Boyer said he receives no royalties from sales of the book, which is published by the Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co. of Dubuque, Iowa. He said he intends to make some changes to the book so it could be peer-reviewed, which would enable him to get royalties from it in the future. Money from the current book's sales may go toward buying more pictures for the textbook or reducing the price of a future edition.
Boyer said the book's unconventional nature made it tough to get it through the publishing process. He said the book came out too recently to tell if it will be used in classes taught by people other than him. A message left at Kendall/Hunt was not immediately returned.
Boyer, who has bachelor's and master's degrees from Tech, has been teaching there since 1998. He received the Student's Choice Award for Faculty Member of the Year in 2005 and Tech's Sporn Award for the best teacher in an introductory subject in 2002. Sporn Award candidates are nominated by Tech students.
"He's the man," freshman Alex Horner said of Boyer while leaving the Geography 1014 course Thursday. "He's a great teacher. The textbook's written the way he speaks."
In explaining different cultures in the book, Boyer disregards political correctness. Describing how people of South America blended their culture with the Catholicism brought over from Europe, he refers to it as "freaky-freaky crap that doesn't look like Catholicism."
And the war crime known as the "Rape of Nanking," in which Japanese soldiers killed thousands of Chinese people in 1937 and 1938, "really sucked for China."
Those words accompany a photo of corpses tied to stakes.
Hincker described the description as "insensitive at best."
Elsewhere in the book, a photograph of an elderly Asian man is accompanied by the words, "Old China sez: "Me Chinese, me play joke."
The book has multiple photos of attractive women with captions that have sexual overtones. The chapter on South Asia has a shot of a woman on a cellphone captioned: "Yes Plaid Avenger, my back office is always open for you ..."
Sophomore Erin Olasz said Boyer tells students they can talk to him if they're offended by the course material. And she enjoys the class.
"I think the book's interesting," Olasz said. "It's actually a good read."
Boyer explained that the main character is similar to James Bond in his love of women and alcohol.
"I understand why that might be troublesome to some, but it is done in a lighthearted way," he said. "And after all, it is hosted by a cartoon character."
Tequila, wine, beer and various cocktail mixes are mentioned as the main character makes his way around different countries.
Hincker, who serves on the university's task force on alcohol abuse, said "anything to do with glorifying alcohol to underage students is a concern for me. I'm speaking for myself, but think I'm speaking for the administration because we are very concerned about alcohol abuse."
Asked if cocktail recipes are appropriate in a textbook largely directed at people younger than 21, Boyer said: "The drink recipes are entirely fictional. I made all of them up. They're not tested or tried, and I actually heartily encourage people not to try those things. They're there to make political points, or comedy points."
He said the "White Russian" and "Red Russian" recipes, for example, are a device to get students to remember the names of the factions in that nation's civil war.
It has been remarked that many of today's youths are more likely to be exposed to current events though the irreverent comedy shows of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than through traditional media. Asked if Stewart was an influence on his teaching style, Boyer said, "I would say I'm doing something similar to him, but I've been doing this [class] longer than he's been on TV, so he's doing something similar to me is the way I look at it."
Boyer scoffed at the notion that the stereotypes in the book might perpetuate racist or insensitive attitudes to other cultures. His object is to eliminate those types of attitudes by giving students a better understanding of different cultures and people, he said.
"We're internationally clueless as a country," he said. "I'm trying to build all of this stuff from the ground up."
Boyer, who was known by students for his unconventional teaching methods well before the book was published, said he has never gone out of his way to draw attention to himself, good or bad.
"I don't really give a lot of thought into trying to offend or trying to create excitement," he said. "I just do what I do. That creates excitement."
Hincker said he had only seen a few photocopies from the book, not the more than 400-page text itself.
He described Boyer as a junior faculty member who "might be a little edgy" and going "a little too far in some areas." But Hincker also said, "I think the important thing is there hasn't been a single complaint from a student. Students love this guy."
Bill Carstensen Jr., the head of Tech's geography department, said today's students "live on MTV and iPods. They don't live on reading the textbooks that I had in school."
Boyer, he said, "is trying to do something that pushes the envelope, but mainly he does it because it makes the whole process more educational for the students."
The unorthodox textbook will receive a warning sticker and undergo other changes.
By Greg Esposito and Albert Raboteau
The Roanoke Times
The basic message of the Monroe Doctrine was, "Don't mess in our hemisphere, b------!"
And Portugal "got screwed pretty damn good" in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.
Those are some of the lessons being taught by "Plaid Avenger's World," the new textbook in a geography course at Virginia Tech.
John Boyer, a popular instructor who wrote the book and teaches the course, said it's an experimental approach aimed at getting students to better learn the material. Chock-full of foul language, recipes for cocktails and more than a few cultural stereotypes, the book features a central character -- the Plaid Avenger -- who travels to different parts of the globe and explains culture and history in 21st-century college student vernacular.
The book made its debut in Boyer's Geography 1014: World Regions course this semester. Boyer said he doesn't like using textbooks in his classes because they're too dry and boring. With help from students, he wrote the book in three months last year.
Boyer, who resembles the avenger in both appearance and dress, said the book has received a positive response from the roughly 600 students in his course. No students or parents have complained to him. The only negative feedback he has heard is from "a few very squeaky wheels" among the faculty, he said.
Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said the administration did hear a complaint about the book from a faculty member a couple of weeks ago. Since the situation arose, some changes have been planned for the book, Boyer said.
A warning sticker will be added to the book noting that some of its language is explicit. A disclaimer, urging underage readers not to drink alcohol and all readers to respect diversity and to stand up for racial and sexual equality, is also expected to be applied.
The university's name appears on the book's title page, implying that the school was involved in the publishing, which is not the case, so that will be concealed with the sticker and removed in future printings.
Boyer said he planned to make some changes in the book for future editions that would make it more marketable.
Hincker said the university does not review the content of textbooks written by its faculty. If a professor assigns a book he or she wrote, the work must be reviewed but "the issue here is not content," Hincker said. "It's to ensure that a faculty member is not setting himself up as a publisher and then requiring students to purchase his book."
Boyer said he receives no royalties from sales of the book, which is published by the Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co. of Dubuque, Iowa. He said he intends to make some changes to the book so it could be peer-reviewed, which would enable him to get royalties from it in the future. Money from the current book's sales may go toward buying more pictures for the textbook or reducing the price of a future edition.
Boyer said the book's unconventional nature made it tough to get it through the publishing process. He said the book came out too recently to tell if it will be used in classes taught by people other than him. A message left at Kendall/Hunt was not immediately returned.
Boyer, who has bachelor's and master's degrees from Tech, has been teaching there since 1998. He received the Student's Choice Award for Faculty Member of the Year in 2005 and Tech's Sporn Award for the best teacher in an introductory subject in 2002. Sporn Award candidates are nominated by Tech students.
"He's the man," freshman Alex Horner said of Boyer while leaving the Geography 1014 course Thursday. "He's a great teacher. The textbook's written the way he speaks."
In explaining different cultures in the book, Boyer disregards political correctness. Describing how people of South America blended their culture with the Catholicism brought over from Europe, he refers to it as "freaky-freaky crap that doesn't look like Catholicism."
And the war crime known as the "Rape of Nanking," in which Japanese soldiers killed thousands of Chinese people in 1937 and 1938, "really sucked for China."
Those words accompany a photo of corpses tied to stakes.
Hincker described the description as "insensitive at best."
Elsewhere in the book, a photograph of an elderly Asian man is accompanied by the words, "Old China sez: "Me Chinese, me play joke."
The book has multiple photos of attractive women with captions that have sexual overtones. The chapter on South Asia has a shot of a woman on a cellphone captioned: "Yes Plaid Avenger, my back office is always open for you ..."
Sophomore Erin Olasz said Boyer tells students they can talk to him if they're offended by the course material. And she enjoys the class.
"I think the book's interesting," Olasz said. "It's actually a good read."
Boyer explained that the main character is similar to James Bond in his love of women and alcohol.
"I understand why that might be troublesome to some, but it is done in a lighthearted way," he said. "And after all, it is hosted by a cartoon character."
Tequila, wine, beer and various cocktail mixes are mentioned as the main character makes his way around different countries.
Hincker, who serves on the university's task force on alcohol abuse, said "anything to do with glorifying alcohol to underage students is a concern for me. I'm speaking for myself, but think I'm speaking for the administration because we are very concerned about alcohol abuse."
Asked if cocktail recipes are appropriate in a textbook largely directed at people younger than 21, Boyer said: "The drink recipes are entirely fictional. I made all of them up. They're not tested or tried, and I actually heartily encourage people not to try those things. They're there to make political points, or comedy points."
He said the "White Russian" and "Red Russian" recipes, for example, are a device to get students to remember the names of the factions in that nation's civil war.
It has been remarked that many of today's youths are more likely to be exposed to current events though the irreverent comedy shows of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than through traditional media. Asked if Stewart was an influence on his teaching style, Boyer said, "I would say I'm doing something similar to him, but I've been doing this [class] longer than he's been on TV, so he's doing something similar to me is the way I look at it."
Boyer scoffed at the notion that the stereotypes in the book might perpetuate racist or insensitive attitudes to other cultures. His object is to eliminate those types of attitudes by giving students a better understanding of different cultures and people, he said.
"We're internationally clueless as a country," he said. "I'm trying to build all of this stuff from the ground up."
Boyer, who was known by students for his unconventional teaching methods well before the book was published, said he has never gone out of his way to draw attention to himself, good or bad.
"I don't really give a lot of thought into trying to offend or trying to create excitement," he said. "I just do what I do. That creates excitement."
Hincker said he had only seen a few photocopies from the book, not the more than 400-page text itself.
He described Boyer as a junior faculty member who "might be a little edgy" and going "a little too far in some areas." But Hincker also said, "I think the important thing is there hasn't been a single complaint from a student. Students love this guy."
Bill Carstensen Jr., the head of Tech's geography department, said today's students "live on MTV and iPods. They don't live on reading the textbooks that I had in school."
Boyer, he said, "is trying to do something that pushes the envelope, but mainly he does it because it makes the whole process more educational for the students."
Buttcrack of the Earth in Atlantic
Scientists have discovered a large area thousands of square kilometers in extent in the middle of the Atlantic where the Earth’s crust appears to be missing. Instead, the mantle - the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many kilometers thick - is exposed on the seafloor, 3000m below the surface. Marine geologist Dr Chris MacLeod, School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences said, “This discovery is like an open wound on the surface of the Earth. Was the crust never there? Was it once there but then torn away on huge geological faults? If so, then how and why?”
To answer some of these questions Dr MacLeod with a team of scientists, led by marine geophysicist Professor Roger Searle, Durham University, will travel to the area which lies mid-way between the Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean.
The expedition will be the inaugural research cruise of a new UK research ship RRS James Cook. The team intends to use sonar to image the seafloor and then take rock cores using a robotic seabed drill. The samples will provide a rare opportunity to gain insights into the workings of the mantle deep below the surface of the Earth.
Cardiff University scientists will shortly set sail next week (March 5th) to investigate a startling discovery in the depths of the Atlantic.
To answer some of these questions Dr MacLeod with a team of scientists, led by marine geophysicist Professor Roger Searle, Durham University, will travel to the area which lies mid-way between the Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean.
The expedition will be the inaugural research cruise of a new UK research ship RRS James Cook. The team intends to use sonar to image the seafloor and then take rock cores using a robotic seabed drill. The samples will provide a rare opportunity to gain insights into the workings of the mantle deep below the surface of the Earth.
Cardiff University scientists will shortly set sail next week (March 5th) to investigate a startling discovery in the depths of the Atlantic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
