Scientists have been studying people who resist HIV, and new information has come out that may lead to a vaccine that can prevent AIDS. And now for a real “Yay, Science!” moment.
The research has been published in the journal Science by Dr. Bruce Walker, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University. “For a long time, we've known that some people progress extremely rapidly when they get infected, and others can stay well for three decades and never need treatment and still look entirely well,” Walker said. “We thought we could apply new techniques from the human genome project to understand what the genetic basis was for that.”
About one in 300 people who contract HIV have immune systems that can suppress the virus and keep it at extremely low levels for a long time. While studying these people, the researchers found five amino acids in a protein called HLA-B that are linked to a person’s ability to resist. It’s not a vaccine yet, but it’s a great start.
“We've got a clearer indication of why people can survive in the face of HIV, and we've gotten more focused in terms of the research we need to do to get where we've got to go,” Walker said.
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A Missouri mom who caught flack for letting her son dress up as Daphne for Halloween has created an Internet buzz and led to an appearance on CNN. Now, her succinct and beautiful response to the costume-haters has been published: “My son is gay. Or he’s not. I don’t care.”
The mother, under the name Nerdy Apple Bottom, is a police officer’s wife who, when her Scooby Doo-loving 5-year-old wanted to be Daphne for Halloween, ordered the costume without any societal gender-stereotype hesitations. Afterward, her son caught no reported ribbing from the kids in his class, but the mothers of those kids were entirely different: Nerdy Apple Bottom details a scenario on her blog where “Mothers A, B and C” criticized her openly for the decision.
To which, Nerdy Apple Bottom wrote, “If a set of purple sparkly tights and a velvety dress is what makes my baby happy one night, then so be it. If he wants to carry a purse, or marry a man, or paint fingernails with his best girlfriend, then OK. My job as his mother is not to stifle that man that he will be, but to help him along his way. Mine is not to dictate what is ‘normal’ and what is not, but to help him become a good person.”
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A Pennsylvania brewer has taken the names of nearby towns—Intercourse, Blue Ball, Mount Joy and Bareville—and turned it into a popular artesian beer, marketing “Sex in a Bottle.”
Intercourse Brewing, a one-woman, home-based company, has produced 18,000 cases of its specialty beer, including Paradise Pale Ale, Mount Joy Light, Bareville Pilsner and Blue Ball Porter. The brewer and CEO, Nicole Courides, is one of the nation’s youngest independent beer entrepreneurs at 23. She’s been smart enough to capitalize on the sexual innuendo inherent in the local town names, even producing a suggestively phallic logo of a barn flanked by two, round shrubs.
Her promotional T-shirts read: “I love Intercourse (beer)” and her coasters say “Right now, I'm having Intercourse.” That goes well with her company’s slogan: “May your spirit be light and may you always enjoy Intercourse.” Sounds like good advice, whether or not you’re a beer drinker.