Community blog entries

The beginning of the end for HIV/AIDS? The RV144 HIV Vaccine trial in Thailand reports success

September 24, 2009 by BlueGenes

When HIV was discovered as the causative agent of AIDS in 1984 (and has since been repeatedly proven, despite denialists claims - see Ben's post) scientists were relieved: "It's a virus! Phew, viruses are something we can deal with. Alright, somebody go cook up a vaccine: problem solved". According to wikipedia, senior figures in the US health system claimed that a vaccine would be ready in as little as two years. 25 years later HIV is getting the better of us like no other disease, and the vaccine front has seen failure after failure. Continue reading for a brief analysis of the latest HIV vaccine study: even better continue reading at Blue-Genes.net where this post was born and bred.

Lasers' Role in Global Energy Revolution

September 23, 2009 by jnaugle

Carbon nanotubes, photovoltaics and the "hydrogen economy" -- not exactly household concepts yet. But they are technologies at the forefront of the growing worldwide demand for "green" energy and manufacturing. And lasers are critical to this global revolution.

Role of Cancer Stem Cells in the Development of the Tumor Vasculature

September 21, 2009 by jenwjw

A common strategy to stop tumor growth is to cut the tumor's blood supply, usually by inhibiting angiogenic factors such as the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). However, recent evidence suggests that anti-angiogenic therapy could also enhance tumor growth and invasiveness in the long-term [1].

The Lazy Way to Stay in Love

September 20, 2009 by Reuniting

Waiting for a concert to begin at our local county fair, my husband and I checked out a reptile exhibit that included an animal trainer with a live alligator resting calmly on his lap. As we stroked the gator, I asked the trainer why it was so tame. "I pet it daily. If I didn't, it would quickly be wild again, and wouldn't allow this," he explained.

Please Commit To Providing Green OA Before Committing To Pay For Gold OA!

September 17, 2009 by Stevan_Harnad

What follows is a critique of the "Compact for Open-Access Equity."

The Compact states:

"We the undersigned universities recognize the crucial value of the services provided by scholarly publishers, the desirability of open access to the scholarly literature, and the need for a stable source of funding for publishers who choose to provide open access to their journals contents. Those universities and funding agencies receiving the bene?ts of publisher services should recognize their collective and individual responsibility for that funding, and this recognition should be ongoing and public so that publishers can rely on it as a condition for their continuing operation.

"Therefore, each of the undersigned universities commits to the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds. We encourage other universities and research funding agencies to join us in this commitment, to provide a suf?cient and sustainable funding basis for open-access publication of the scholarly literature." /signed/

My critique is based on points that I have already made many times before, unheeded. All I can do is echo them yet again (and hope!):

How your emotional state affects how you hear speech

September 17, 2009 by The Quantum Lob...

I found an interesting study by Wang et. al investigating how the current emotional state that we find ourselves in modulates the auditory response of speech early in the sensory processing stream at the cortical level. Here's their abstract.