This article gives a lot of hope for HIV patients or anyone related to or a friend of one. United states researchers announced this week that the success of a new gene therapy trial brings us one step closer to a 'functional cure' for HIV. This study involved copying the effects of a naturally occurring mutation that makes a the patient resistant to infection, this therapy aims to reduce or terminate the dependency of HIV patients on "anti-retroviral drugs".
The article says, "Out of the six HIV patients treated with the new therapy, which works by stopping the virus from getting inside the white blood cells it normally infects, one patient had completely cleared the virus and a further two saw a ten-fold drop in virus levels, despite not taking any antiretroviral drugs." This study can potentially change the lives of many and save many who are nearing their end after fighting the battle with HIV.
I chose to review this article because I find advancements in medical treatments interesting. The way we have discovered so much when it comes to medication is amazing, but we continue to keep advancing and finding more and more treatments. It was once thought that treating HIV was impossible, but this recent research has made scientists think otherwise.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Why Too Much Sugar Is No Good!
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the average United States adult consumes 22 teaspoons more of added sugar per DAY! This becomes 154 more teaspoons per WEEK, and calculates to be over 150 pounds a YEAR! As for teenagers, they consume 34 more teaspoons per day than average. They say that this is more than twice the amount of sugar in our daily diet. There are many health effect that can become problems over time with an over consumption of sugar. Some include the following: 1. Sugar can increase the risk of diabetes, 2. may cause acne, 3. too much sugar can hurt your heart, 4. increases the canches of depression, 5. high blood sugar can increase the risk of a yeast infection, 6. can increase the risk of cancer, 7. and can change your mooods and emotions.
I chose to blog about this article because sugar is not only an important factor for how we funtion our body, but it can affect our lifestyle and how we choose to live it. Too much sugaer is obviously no good for our body, but the potential of putting it in health risk can be prevented. Cut down on sugars, and you won't have to worry about these problems.
http://fitbie.msn.com/eat-right/tips/6-scary-side-effects-sugar?gt1=50002
I chose to blog about this article because sugar is not only an important factor for how we funtion our body, but it can affect our lifestyle and how we choose to live it. Too much sugaer is obviously no good for our body, but the potential of putting it in health risk can be prevented. Cut down on sugars, and you won't have to worry about these problems.
http://fitbie.msn.com/eat-right/tips/6-scary-side-effects-sugar?gt1=50002
Longevity Gene Debate Opens Trans-Atlantic Rift
This article is about the long lasting disputes about enhancing one's longevity, which is life expectancy.The dispute involves the gene that is responsible in making sirtuins, which is proteins that help control metabolism. Because of sirtuins' metabolic role, lab rats placed on a very low-calorie diet lived 40-percent longer lives. Humans will not function well on the same diet that the rats had; but if humans take drugs that activate sirtuins , they can live longer and healthier lives. Resveratrol is found in red wine and stimulates sirtuins production.
Researchers David Gems and Linda Patridge of University College of London, re-examined experiments where roundworms and fruit fly were genetically manipulated to produce more sirtuins and lived longer. They founded that the experiments were flawed because the control group were not genetically identical. When they repeated the experiments, they founded that organism with extra sirtuins do not live longer.
The genetic study of aging is a new field and has many common mistakes. In 2009,Stephen Helfand of Brown University conduct the same experiment as the two London researchers. Only Helfand founded that the flies with the extra sirtuins did live longer than the flies without the extra sirtunis.
London scientist believe that this field is filled with sloppy experiments. While the American scientist believe that there is still improvement to be made. Scientists no involved in the debate say that sirtuins remains a field of vast interests and is more complex than origanially suggested.
By:Christine Garbaravage
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
New Found Squid: Any Sex Will Do
In this extremely interesting article, scientists have found a new creature in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean. Octopoteuthis deletron, the newly discovered squid, carries similar characteristics to mammals such as bottlenose dolphins and bonobos. They all have no particular preference when it comes to mating.
The mating process for this particular squid is interesting to say the least. Not much is known in great detail, but it is described as a male squid ejaculating a packet of sperm at the partner, male or female. The sperm is contained in a membrane that shoots into the flesh of the receiver. If the male happens to mate with a female, the sperm remains inside of the female until the female is fertile and able to produce eggs. The male however remains stuck with the sperm.
This, by far, was the most intriguing article I found. I understand that there are millions of creatures that we have yet to discover, but yet I am still amazed when reading about each new finding.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Dolphins Have Super Sense Powers
The article I chose to read described a recently discovered special power that dolphins possess- the ability to sense electrical signals from other animals. These electrical signals can come from the animals contracting muscles, heartbeat, or pumping gills. Dolphins use this special sense power to locate and capture prey in the ocean.
Scientists claim that dolphins are the only mammal to possess this power, however, it has been mentioned that sharks, amphibians, and some fish also can sense electical currents from their prey.
Biologists have discovered that the ability to sense these signals comes from special organs on the dolphins' snout, called crypts. These organs contain a rich blood supply, so researchers knew they had an important function. Sometimes, too, dolphins filter feed off the bottom of the ocean floor, thus having limited visibility. This gave scientists another clue that dolphins would need another method for sensing the location of their prey. Biologists have claimed that this is a major breakthrough in research projects-- they have finally discovered that dolphins use electroreception to detect their prey.
Image- www.horiwood.com
Misty reservoir would fill 140 trillion Earth oceans, scientists say.
Black hole hosts Universe's most massive water cloud. In a galaxy 12 million light-years away resides the most distant and most massive cloud of water yet seen in the universe, astronomers say. "Weighing in at 40 billion times the mass of Earth, the giant cloud of mist sweddles a type of actively feeding supermassive black hole known as a quasar..."
Among the brightest and most energetic objects in the universe, quasars are black holes at the centers of galaxies that are grabitationally consuming surounding disks of material while burping back our powerful energy jets, and the vapor around this particular quasar represents enough water "to fill all the oceans on the earth over 140 trillion times--that is a lot of water."
It was found that the wet black hole using a spectrograph attached to the ten-meter Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on the summit of Manuna Kea in Hawaii. "As this disk of material is consumed by the central black hole, it releases energy in the form of x-ray and infrared radiation, which in turn can heat the surrounding material, resulting in the pbserved water vapor," said study co-author Eric Murphy, an astronomer with the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California. In fact, there's enough gas and dust present that the black hole could grow to be 6 times its current size--or more than 120 billion times the mass of our sun, Murphy said. Astronomers are hoping to use the find to study how large quantities of water in the young universe may have acted as efficient collants of the interstellar medium--the thin gas and dust that exists between stars--possibly affecting star formation and the evolution of galaxies such as our Milky Way.
7 Billion in 2011
Science Daily.com reports that soon this year we will reach 7 billion people in the entire world population. In 1999 there was 6 billion, this means that in 12 years we gained an extra 1 billion people.The United Nations, expects around 10.1 billion people by 2100. At least these projected people will be occupying most of today's areas that are not as populated and Africa.
Still this insane amount of people that have not even been born yet are already causing problems for those of us who are already here. We now have to think about food supply, water supply, housing, and energy. This also means that with less space, everyone will be in closer distances of each other. This means that disease can go through populations a lot quicker. Health will be another top priority to worry about. David Bloom from the Harvard School of Public Health said "Those challenges are not insurmountable, but we cannot deal with them by sticking our heads in the sand. We have to tackle some tough issues ranging from the unmet need for contraception among hundreds of millions of women and the huge knowledge-action gaps we see in the area of child survival, to the reform of retirement policy and the development of global immigration policy. It's just plain irresponsible to sit by idly while humankind experiences full force the perils of demographic change."
Original Article from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110728144933.htm
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