December 1 is World AIDS Day, an annual event dedicated to raising awareness and money to fight AIDS around the world.
Over the last four decades, HIV and AIDS have been at the forefront of advocacy and research. But despite medical advances, AIDS remains one of the most destructive pandemics in history, particularly of youth.
Twenty-five years ago today, a group of astronauts ascended in the space shuttle to accomplish a feat of unprecedented proportions: to fix NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, in space. Learn how the ingenuity of those repairs blazed the way for decades of not only satellite repairs, but also space exploration: https://go.nasa.gov/2FWHuXz&h=AT1qFoI48_v6tgpXkkQf7uBHIj2Xuh…jlZErelV8A
Critics say that geoengineering efforts are Band-Aid solutions that treat the symptoms of climate change instead of the cause: global carbon emissions. Jim Thomas, the co-executive director of an environmental advocacy organization called the ETC Group, told Nature that he fears the Harvard project could push the concept of geoengineering into the mainstream.
But advocates say that anything that could buy some extra time in the face of looming climate catastrophe is worth exploring.
“I’m studying a chemical substance,” Harvard researcher Zhen Dai told Nature. “It’s not like it’s a nuclear bomb.”
I’m Caleb Harper, principal investigator and director of the Open Agriculture initiative at the MIT Media Lab. Kent Larson courtesy of MIT Media Lab.
In his book Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, Barry Estabrook details how grocery store tomatoes are both less nutritious and delicious than those grown decades ago. Industrial farming now grows crops for yield, sacrificing taste and vitamins for an easy-to-harvest, shippable product. It’s why apples at your local supermarket are probably about a year old. Caleb Harper, a principal research scientist at MIT and director of the OpenAg Initiative, wants to use technology to grow food that’s healthier, tastier, and more sustainable.
“Growing for nutrition and growing for flavor, it’s not really something anyone does,” he told Digital Trends at the recent ReThink Food conference in Napa, California.
Continue reading “With Personal Food Computers, nerd farmers are finding the best way to grow” »
Mountains and volcanoes are some of the most fascinating geological formations on Earth — and scientists and adventurers alike can’t get enough of them. Not a lot of us will get a first-hand look at what the planet’s tallest peaks and ranges look like from their summits, but thanks to the photos taken by NASA satellites in orbit and camera-wielding astronauts in space, they are visible as they never would be to the naked eye — hundreds of miles above the Earth.
Click through the slideshow to see stunning images of the Earth’s mountains and volcanoes — from Mount Everest and the Himalayas to the volcanoes of Hawaii and the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains — captured from space.
HIV treatments have come a long way in the more than 30 years since the virus was first identified.
Powerful antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) can now keep the virus controlled at levels that current tests cannot detect in the blood. Perhaps just as important, people who take these drugs diligently soon after they’re infected are unlikely to pass the virus to others. But the treatment isn’t perfect. Those with HIV need to take a pill every day for the rest of their lives, and even if they do, the virus can easily morph to become resistant to the drugs. That’s why patients on ARV treatment should faithfully monitor their virus and cycle between different combinations of drugs.
Finding new, easier ways to more effectively treat HIV and stop its spread is therefore an urgent priority, and researchers are now looking beyond daily drugs to therapies that might provide people with more lasting protection.
