Read more: “Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90.”

The Swiss Commission is quick to point out however, that this conclusion does not apply to all HIV-infected individuals and that informed consent is mandatory for the infected person’s partner. Myron Cohen, director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for Infectious Diseases in Chapel Hill indicates that although the risk for transmitting the virus to an uninfected partner appears to decrease in the Swiss study, the possibility of infection still remains. Given the HIV epidemic, one wonders if such a practice does not leave open the possibility of future infection. Dr. Cohen relates…”We have an HIV epidemic, and suggesting that some people with HIV can have sex without a condom will only create confusion and make it worse.”

To add to this, another study released in early February found that macaques on anti-retroviral medications do not acquire the simian version of HIV when exposed. Although this is good news in terms of such medication slowing or preventing HIV and even it’s use as a prophylactic, the possibility of abuse, particularly in light of the Swiss study remains.

The star is 5,000 light years away from the Earth. Remember that a light year is defined as the distance traveled by light in 1 year. In other words, it would take light 5,000 years to reach the Canis Majoris from the Earth. To give you an understanding of how much larger this star is compared to our own Sun and our planet Earth, consider the following quote from Wikipedia,

Similarly, if a human could walk on the surface of Canis Majoris – assuming a speed of 5 km/h (3 mph) for 8 hours a day – the person would have to walk for 650,000 years to circle the star (compared with 2 years 11 months to complete the same task on the Earth, and 310 years 7 months on the Sun).

Yep, that’s one huge star. It is a big universe out there and we are nothing but tiny little specks of star material that somehow came together to make us into breathing, living, and thinking beings. Think about that the next time you become upset because of some small issue taking place in our tiny corner of our vast universe.

You might have already heard of mathematicians who claim that if they don’t produce a major result by the time they hit 30 years of age or shortly thereafter then they never will. In fact, there is much evidence that the older people get the least likely are to come up with a groundbreaking theory.

The researchers now have also found that marriage has a similar effect to scientific genius. The study shows that once married men are less likely to produce a major scientific result. They say that the cause of this could be that after marriage these men do not find themselves in the situation of having to compete against other in order to rise to the top and gain the affection of females. So, they kind of give up; the result of winning the race, I guess.

Read, Marriage may tame genius.

The death of Dr. Judah Folkman.

Dr. Folkman is considered the founding father of the concept of Angiogenesis-which at the time was a radical idea that cancer cells could hijack a patient’s own blood vessels, and through the use of angiogenic factors (chemical factors) support the growth of blood vessels which are diverted to give nutrients to feed the growing tumor. He proposed this idea in 1971 and published this in the New England Journal of Medicine. The idea at the time was highly controversial and for more than two decades was not well received. Nevertheless Dr. Folkman continued to push the idea of Angiogenesis, to which everyone in the cancer community owes a debt of gratitude, as it turned out to be correct, and started the development of anti-angiogenic drugs as a treatment for cancer. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Folkman not only came up with the idea of Angiogenesis but he also purified the first angiogenic protein from a tumor, discovered the first angiogenesis inhibitors and initiated clinical trials of anti-angiogenic therapy. Today, angiogenesis inhibitors have received FDA approval in the U.S. for cancer and for the treatment of macular degeneration and are also approved in 27 other countries.

Dr. Folkman was born in Cleveland in 1933, and graduated cum laude from Ohio State University, in 1953. He continued his education at Harvard Medical School, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1957. Dr. Folkman began his surgical residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and served as chief resident in surgery from 1964-1965. Dr. Folkman was the author of 389 original peer-reviewed papers and 106 book chapters and monographs. He also held honorary degrees from fifteen universities and was the recipient of numerous national and international awards. He had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Folkman died of an apparent heart attack, he was 74.

The newly discovered planet along with the other 4 planets, make it the first known planetary quintet not within our solar system. Although other planets have been shown to orbit stars other than our sun (roughly 250 planets), these mostly have 3 or less planets orbiting a star. There is only one known case of a star with 4 planets orbiting it. With the newly discovered planet orbiting the star 55 Cancri this now holds the record for the greatest number of confirmed planets orbiting it a star with 5 planets.

So what are stem cells? They are the master cells, which are capable of forming every type of the roughly 200 types of cells in our body. The characteristics of such cells apart from being able to “turn into” other cell types such as heart cells, brain cells, skin cells etc is the ability of these cells to self renew or become immortal. These cells are specifically termed embryonic stem cells, which differ from adult stem cells which have been found in several tissues and can only generate a limited number of cell types, in addition to being difficult to grow.

The potential of such cells would be there value in such diseases as Parkinson’s, heart disease and spinal-cord injury, that is, being able to generate new replacement cells specific to that tissue that have been lost to the disease. Where the problem and the controversy comes in, is that up until now stem cells could only be obtained from embryos created during in vitro fertilization (IVF)- (this is not considering umbilical cord stem cells, which do not have enough stem cells for health applications) these embryos would have been discarded in several instances with failed IVF. However, the question of where life begins, has reared it ugly head and has held up stem cell research. Opponents of stem cell research argue that embryos at any stage, is life and should not be tampered with. There are also religious undertones here that exacerbate the problem, in that we are tampering with creation. Lastly, techniques in stem cell research constitute cloning-taken to the extreme, the cloning of humans does not sit well with people for a whole host of reasons-pick your movie- cloning super-soldiers, or pick historically bad science-eugenics.

Patients are trapped in a political-health limbo while decisions are made in various countries for and against stem cell research. However, all of that could change with the great work put forth by several groups, at the forefront however, is Dr. Yamanaka out of Japan-Dr. Yamanaka’s group was not only able to generate stem cells from mouse embryos, but followed this work up by generating stem cells from human skin cells. This work was reproduced independently at the same time by Dr. Thomson out of Madison Wisconsin-both groups have published there findings in Cell and Science this year respectively.

This discovery avoids the whole embryo issue altogether, and could provide the benefits that stem cells hold without the political and social concerns.

* Progressive-Relapsing
MS Experience: a steadily worsening disease from the onset but also have clear acute relapses (attacks or exacerbations), with or without recovery. In contrast to relapsing-remitting MS, the periods between relapses are characterized by continuing disease progression.
Frequency: Relatively rare. Approximately 5%.

Secondary-Progressive
MS Experience: an initial period of relapsing-remitting MS, followed by a steadily worsening disease course with or without occasional flare-ups, minor recoveries (remissions), or plateaus.
Frequency: 50% of people with relapsing-remitting MS developed this form of the disease within 10 years of their initial diagnosis, before introduction of the “disease-modifying” drugs. Long-term data are not yet available to demonstrate if this is significantly delayed by treatment.

* Primary-Progressive
MS Experience: a slow but nearly continuous worsening of their disease from the onset, with no distinct relapses or remissions. However, there are variations in rates of progression over time, occasional plateaus, and temporary minor improvements.
Frequency: Relatively rare. Approximately 10%.

* Relapsing-Remitting
MS Experience: specific defined relapses (also called attacks, or exacerbations). These are episodes of acute worsening of neurologic function. They are followed by partial or complete recovery periods (remissions) free of disease progression.
Frequency: Most common form of MS at time of initial diagnosis. Approximately 85%.

A genome wide association study (GWAS) of approximately 931 families identified genes encoding two cytokines (ligands-proteins that interact with a receptor) and receptors-interleukin-2 receptor alpha and interleukin-7 receptor alpha as important risk factors for MS. Interleukin-2 and its receptor have already been shown to be important for regulating our own immune system and variants or mutations in these genes have been implicated in other autoimmune diseases such as diabetes type I and Graves disease (hyperthyroidism).

This is an important find in linking these previously unidentified genes to the disease MS. Of great importance is determining how these genes are important in MS and if they are associated with a particular clinical course of MS.