HIV becoming less virulent?
Research comparing samples of HIV-1 from 1986-89 to samples from 2002-03 have found the virus weakening. The new samples do not multiply as well and they appear more susceptible to drugs. This, of course, flies in the face of other research showing that HIV is actually becoming more drug-resistant and virulent. What is actually the case is still up for grabs, but the new findings suggest that in several (human) generations, HIV may not be lethal.
Traditionally, it has been thought that the more hosts HIV passes through, the more lethal it would become. The new study contradicts this, suggesting evolutionary forces at work: if a virus becomes more efficient, it’s going to wipe out hosts quicker and more effectively. In the short-run, this may be beneficial, but in the long run, it will wipe out what is effectively its environment, leading to extinction of the species itself.
“There is a natural trend to reach an ‘equilibrium’ between the agent and the host interests, in order to guarantee concomitant survival for a longer time,” he said.
It makes sense, then, that the virus would adapt to decrease in virulence which ensures its survival for a long time to come. While it’s too early to say one way or the other, this latest study affords new hope in the search for a cure for HIV and AIDS. In the meantime, caution is urged in being lulled into a false sense of security, despite the fact that other infectious diseases have shown the same tendencies in weakening. Among these are smallpox, TB, and syphilis.
Obviously it goes without saying that this doesn’t mean that crazy people like Christine Maggiore are correct and/or have the moral high ground, however.
First giant squid caught on camera
Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori have caught a giant squid on camera for the first time ever. Using a set of dangled hooks coupled with a Japanese common squid and chopped shrimp as bait, the duo was able to catch an Architeuthis when it wrapped its tentacles around the bait, catching one of its tentacles on the jig.
Over the next four hours, they took more than 550 pictures of the squid as it tried to free itself. The squid was finally able to break free, but only after leaving a 5.5m tentacle attached to the hook. When it was retrieved, it was still functioning, sticking to the deck of the boat and Dr. Kubodera’s fingers.
This is the first time a giant squid has been caught on camera, and it shows that Architeuthis is not a sluggish hunter as had been thought. The 13m giant squid is not the largest type squid. Larger “Colossal squid” are thought to exist that are perhaps twice as large, though none have ever been seen.
The battle for Evolution begins (again)
I have written extensively on evolution here on polyscience, and yesterday began what seems to be a redux of the Scopes Monkey Trial. The Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania requires that teachers instruct their students that evolution is “merely” one unproven theory. The teachers are required to state that intelligent design is a possible alternative. Furthermore, the teachers are required to refer students to an intelligent design textbook for more information.
The parents taking the school board to court have asserted that this violates the separation of church and state. And they’re absolutely right. I’ve stated in the past that ID is okay to teach (even in public schools) so long as it’s not taught in the science classroom. ID lacks the most basic tenets of what constitutes “science” — testability and falsifiability.
The first witness on behalf of the parents was Kenneth Miller a professor at Brown University who lectured the courtroom on a variety of topics, but his basic theme was that there was no controversy in science about the validity of evolution; the only controversy over the topic comes from outside science, from the lay public.
Much of the confusion over evolution and intelligent design comes from the definition of “theory” itself. When used in the context of science, it implicitly has a different meaning than it does when applied to almost anything else. Therefore, dismissing evolution as “merely a theory” is an egregious misuse of the implied meaning. Not everything can become a scientific theory — it must first undergo scrutiny, testing, and revision. While the mechanisms and explanations behind evolution have changed since Darwin, his overarching themes of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” have withstood scientific scrutiny for well over 100 years. The school board of a public school system should not be so easily able to toss it aside like so much garbage, regardless of local public opinion.
According to a CBS poll one year ago, 65% of Americans want creationism to be taught along with evolution; 37% would want it to be taught instead of evolution.
Fifty-five per cent believe God created humans as we know them today.
Unfortunately for the public, public opinion is meaningless when it comes to what is correct and what is not. Should we teach probability as common sense dictates, simply because most people believe wrong information? Certainly not. And there is no reason that the origins of life should be taught to the whim of public opinion either. Because the public in this case is ignorant, and therefore, wrong.
Science is about understanding and explaining phenomena, not about what “feels good” and makes people happy. As I’ve said in the past, no matter how far back science pushes the boundaries of human understanding, intelligent design can add one more layer of abstraction, thereby rendering it effectively impossible to prove one way or the other. For this simple reason alone it belongs in a religion or philosophy class, not a science class.
“On the other hand,” Miller said, “intelligent design is not a testable theory in any sense and as such it is not accepted by the scientific community.”
During his cross-examination of Miller, Robert Muise, another attorney for the law center, repeatedly asked whether he questioned the completeness of Darwin’s theory.
“Would you agree that Darwin’s theory is not the absolute truth?” Muise said.
“We don’t regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth,” Miller responded.
Miller is absolutely right, even though it would seem as though he’s avoiding the question to those that would choose to read it that way. Even a “simple” theory like the Theory of Gravity has undergone massive revision in the last 50 years, and it stands to reason that it will be further modified over the course of the next 50 years. Tossing it out as “incomplete” is ridiculous. If there’s anything that science has taught mankind it’s this: just when you think you’ve got almost a complete understanding of something, a new development or discovery will come along and turn your world upside-down. It happened to physics with the discovery of subatomic particles, and it will happen again. No matter how well-established and understood your theory may be, something new could come along and blow it out of the water. What matters is that the overarching themes remain consistent though the underlying explanation for the theme may be altered.
I’ll be following this case with great interest in the coming weeks. (And I will endeavor to avoid ranting.)
Katrina frees toxic dart-carrying Willy
Apparently Hurricane Katrina has freed as many as 36 dolphins from their pens in the Gulf of Mexico. Straight out of Red Alert and Free Willy, the Navy has been training the mammals for anti-terror operations. The Navy has had a dolphin-training program since the 1989 when dolphins, fitted with electrodes and harnesses were trained to patrol and protect Trident nuclear submarines during the Cold War. This particular group of animals are trained to shoot divers or anyone else perceived as a threat with a dart that will put the target to sleep for several hours so they may be interrogated later.
The US military will not confirm or deny reports that the dolphins are missing, but,
Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government’s marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.
The dolphins are controlled by signals through a neck harness, but it is unknown if they were made secure before Katrina hit.
The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy’s help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.
Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy’s, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.
As usual, animal rights activists have protested the use of dolphins. I see no reason for their disapproval, however. The military as well as civilian police forces often use dogs, which are arguably less intelligent than dolphins, so I can’t say I really see a problem with the whole thing. The Cetacean Intelligence Mission (CIM), which overseas the dolphins became more important again after the attacks on the USS Cole; the dolphins have also reportedly been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.
Personally I think the idea of dolphin soldiers seems pretty cool, assuming they’re effective, which I see nothing indicating that they are not. The real issue here is why the dolphins were not made secure before the hurricane hit. They could have been harmed, or set free, as has apparently happened here. One would think the military would take better care of its assets.
The road to a science Ph.D.
Jonathan has done a bang-up writing about the road to a science Ph.D. Last week saw his first installment, and yesterday brings his follow-up. From week 1:
The next few years are not always plain sailing. Friends who graduated with you move on to high paying jobs whilst you remain in relative penury. Experiments don’t always work out. There are assessments and committees to deal with. If you’re unlucky enough to have classes, there will be homework! Although you’re researching a particular niche of your own, you are also being formed in the same crucible as the scientists who precede you. They all had a tough time of it, and they’ll be damned if they’ll let some young upstarts off the hook easily.
It might be that you have a committee with five or more examiners. Perhaps it’s only two. You may get grilled in public, or in private. Some places expect you to bring baked goods or food, or (and I prefer this one) you go out to the pub with them afterwards. What they all have in common is that the thesis you wrote, your dissertation, is going to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and every little weakness, typo, mistake or, error will be brought up. Remember that great discussion I wrote? It never even came up in mine. Everything I was proud of writing got ignored, but I did get to spend an hour going over each figure to be told they didn’t like the way I represented the statistics. Again. Odds are, your examiners went through the meat grinder in their day, and if they had it tough, by Jove you will too!
Hrm. Sounds like… fraternal pledging.
Giving mice Down’s syndrome
A “technical” step forward has been made in understanding Down’s syndrome: researchers have successfully introduced 90% of the 250 genes on human chromosome 21 into the embryonic stem cells of mice. A normal person has two copies of chromosome 21, but a person with Down’s syndrome has three, making it part of the aneuploidy class of disorders (of which I have touched on in the past). Using the compromised stem cells, researchers were able to create a strain of mice that carried the extra chromosome.
This strain of mice has problems with memory, brain function, and heart formation. It remains to be seen whether they show a disposition towards other diseases like leukemia, which people with Down’s often have to deal with. By creating the modified stem cells, researchers hope to learn which genes control which aspects of the Down’s symptom. For instance, by learning which genes affect heart formation, they hope to one day create stem cell therapies that will turn off the genes of developing children with Down’s.
While far from a cure, this ability to create strains of mice that can be experimented with shows huge promise in the field of Down’s research. If scientists can discover which genes control brain and heart formation, and which genes alter thyroid function, they can potentially suppress their expression in developing fetuses at some point down the road.
This, of course, is assuming that such therapies will be legal in places like the United States, whose laws are quite restrictive when it comes to stem cell research. I suppose that one could go to a place like the UK for treatment, but I suspect that if real-word promise is offered for relatively mainstream conditions, conservative public opinion in the US will change. Slowly.
Buy your own DNA kit
You can now buy your own home DNA testing kits online from Amazon and Target. The kit doesn’t offer much, but it is cute. One option allows you to store it, and another, more expensive option allows you to see how you stack up to various races. (Whatever that means.) It’s cute, but not very impressive since one could just as easily preserve a few strands of hair in an envelope.
Eventually, such kits could lead to more extensive DNA testing: to see what genetic predispositions one might have. Cancer, Crohn’s, heart disease, etc. I can see mail away DNA testing being big business in ten years. I would suspect that insurance companies might offer discounted rates to those customers that consent to a DNA test before they enroll. Such testing could never be mandatory (per federal law), but I’m certain that some incentives could be offered to aid them in getting a better health picture before of a potential client before a contract is made.
Right now, though, the sort of “DNA testing” offered is largely useless information: it’s too general for it to have any real use.