the eye of Nova's mind

Contraceptive pill influences partner choice -- "The contraceptive pill may disrupt women's natural ability to choose a partner genetically dissimilar to themselves, research at the University of Liverpool has found." This might be a follow-up to a previous study.

Rare case explains why some infected with HIV remain symptom-free for years without antiretroviral drugs

'Erasing' drug-associated memories may stop drug addiction relapses -- NMDA interference

Alternative Energy Hits the Road: Research at WPI Explores Turning Highways and Parking Lots into Solar Collectors

American Geophysical Union journal highlights -- Aug. 12, 2008 -- pgdudda, you might be interested in some of these, given your most recent post.

AP confirms secret camp inside Gitmo

Prosecutor may have known of CIA tapes

Wachovia accused of aiding telemarketing fraud

Hate-crime count in W.Va. torture case

Diabetes Study Partially Halted After Patient Deaths

Moms passed AIDS virus by pre-chewing food: HIV was spread to babies through bleeding gums, doctors say (thanks, brendand)

Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis (thanks, rialian)

Brain-boosting drugs spark ethical debate in UK (thanks, dsgood)

Analysis: AIDS vaccines experts confused, dismayed

You want to talk about conflict of interest? NBA ref reportedly bet on own games: FBI set to arrest official, who allegedly bet on games for last two seasons

Other news:

Tiny-brained man's lifestyle wows doctors: He lived a normal life despite the fluid buildup in his skull

HIV patients build normal immune system: Study shows drug cocktail helps some people restore cell strength

Ga. plant suspected in tainted chili sauce probe: Factory had production issue 2 months ago; 4 sickened by botulism | Botulism From Canned Food Is a Rarity

Herpes drug found to slow HIV advance

3 given organs from HIV-positive donor: Kidney, liver transplants due to 'tragic human error,' Italian hospital says

U of M discovers protein linked to elevated BMI in people of American Indian and Mexican ancestry: Protein is linked to elevated body mass index, obesity and Type 2 diabetes (thanks, dsgood)

Group sues feds over medical marijuana claim

A Medical-Legal Travesty in Libya

Libya's Travesty

And people wonder why I'm against the death penalty.

stolen from lameautarch

Japan develops drug that shuts out HIV from cells

A durable new drug that blocks HIV from entering human cells and causes almost no side effects has been developed by a team of researchers at Japan's Kumamoto University.

The new drug, code named AK602, was reported by the research team's leader, Hiroaki Mitsuya, at the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Kobe on Tuesday.

The drug's main feature is that it shuts out the AIDS virus at the point when it tries to intrude into a human cell.

( Read more... )

Promising New AIDS Treatment

Offering a promising new way to attack the AIDS virus, research on monkeys suggests that an experimental drug helps keep HIV in check by blocking an enzyme that is crucial to infection.

The target is integrase, an HIV enzyme that the virus needs to hijack a patient's cells and spread. Repeated attempts to inhibit integrase's function and stall the virus have failed.

But Merck & Co. researchers report Thursday in the journal Science that they have developed an integrase inhibitor that significantly protected monkeys when given early in infection, and provided some benefit to the very sick, too.

Study Looks at How HIV May Spread Through Oral Sex

Laboratory studies of mouth tissue suggest that unprotected oral sex does have the potential to transmit HIV, but an expert said it is still less risky than other routes of transmission.

The results of this study help researchers understand how HIV is transmitted and suggest that even oral tissue that is intact -- without any tears or sores -- can become infected with HIV under the right circumstances.

Dr. Xuan Liu, of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, California and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles obtained oral tissue samples from over 50 healthy, HIV-negative patients and exposed the tissue to three different types of HIV.

They found that two of the types could infect and reproduce within cells called keratinocytes that line the surface of the mouth, and that these cells can then transfer the infection to adjacent white blood cells.

However, the level of infection in the mouth cells was much lower than that seen in white blood cells -- approximately one-fourth to one-eighth lower.

[...] "HIV is able to get into (keratinocytes), but it reproduces less than it would in blood cells ... because saliva contains an HIV inhibitor," Liu told Reuters Health.

Under certain circumstances, Liu said, keratinocytes are able to release the virus to blood cells, which proliferate much faster than keratinocytes. Thus, the transfer of the infection from keratinocytes to white blood cells may provide a "foothold" for HIV in the body.

[...] Laurence believes the findings indicate there is "no reason for altering safer sex guidelines that have been talked about for over 15 years."

"No exchange of infected bodily fluids is absolutely safe, but kissing has been shown to be of no risk, and oral sex is of much lower risk than the other traditional factors known to spread HIV."