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13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly To AIDS Patients Growing On Trees

Posted by samzenpus on from the nature-not-nurture dept.

An anonymous reader writes Researchers have pinpointed the environmental source of fungal infections that have been sickening HIV/AIDS patients in Southern California for decades. It literally grows on trees. The discovery is based on the science project of a 13-year-old girl, who spent the summer gathering soil and tree samples from areas around Los Angeles hardest hit by infections of the fungus named Cryptococcus gattii.

134 comments

  1. Stay away from those trees then! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems like a good plan.

    1. Re:Stay away from those trees then! by penguinoid · · Score: 2

      Proof that God hates tree-huggers.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  2. Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    For their crimes against nature!

    1. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Funny, gays weren't the ones who originally contracted the disease, nor are they the only ones who carry it. Any human can carry it, and it was traced back to cross breeding humans with monkeys decades ago. Blame the wierd eastern countries, not gay people you arrogant fuck.

    2. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 0

      Any human can carry it, and it was traced back to cross breeding humans with monkeys decades ago.

      Oh shit, you mean there's gonna be something bad coming out of Scotland too? /sheep

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    3. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems that you don't realise that you are replying to a post that is mocking anti-gay propaganda.

    4. Re:Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The penis does not belong in the anus!

    5. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, gays weren't the ones who originally contracted the disease, nor are they the only ones who carry it. Any human can carry it, and it was traced back to cross breeding humans with monkeys decades ago. Blame the wierd eastern countries, not gay people you arrogant fuck.

      Scientists still say AIDS started because somebody had sex with a monkey. Word? After all these researches, the best explanation that you came up with – nobody fucks monkeys and people, you idiot. -Dave Chappelle

    6. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Bullshit. It's believed it infected humans because they *ate* the monkeys, you freak.

    7. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is no widespread practice of beastiality within the countries where HIV developed. Current operating hypothesis is that it came from improper animal handling procedures resulting in blood-to-blood contact between SIV-infected apes and ordinary humans, allowing the virus to jump hosts.

    8. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by camperdave · · Score: 1

      There is no widespread practice of beastiality within the countries where HIV developed. Current operating hypothesis is that it came from improper animal handling procedures resulting in blood-to-blood contact between SIV-infected apes and ordinary humans, allowing the virus to jump hosts.

      It doesn't have to be widespread. All it takes is one instance.

      Current operating hypothesis is that it came from improper animal handling procedures resulting in blood-to-blood contact between SIV-infected apes and ordinary humans, allowing the virus to jump hosts.

      Probably somebody cut themselves while butchering infected bush meat. Although, such accidents must have happened numerous times throughout history. Why is HIV only around now?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    9. Re:Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, stuck something else there then, like a vegetable from the fridge, or something artificial you bought from a sex shop.

    10. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by LduN · · Score: 1

      makes me think of the Ricky Gervais skit. Either you caught AIDS from having sex with a monkey... or you cut yourself while preparing monkey Yeah, I was totally eating monkey... etc etc etc le lulz

    11. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by nbauman · · Score: 1

      Probably somebody cut themselves while butchering infected bush meat. Although, such accidents must have happened numerous times throughout history. Why is HIV only around now?

      Because the people who got it were only traveling around the world on airplanes now.

      Also because it spread through gay anal sex and IV drugs.

    12. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It came from eating monkeys you dumb shit, not fucking them.

    13. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The virus that causes HIV has been around a very, very long time. The public only became aware of it due to homophobes screaming publically about the "gay desease" in the early 1980s. Since then science has come to realize the virus was present in wildlife at least long enough for late 18th century bodies they exhumed to have been infected with it due to eating infected bush meat.

      In reality the virus has probably existed in some form longer than modern humans have. Society as a whole just wasn't aware of it until it got press coverage. The same thing goes for Ebola and its buddy Marburg. They were always present in bats but no one talked about it until it was deemed newsworthy by western media.

    14. Re:Nature is fighting against gays... by sillybilly · · Score: -1

      Exactly. Bisexuals are one thing, love everybody, but those who refuse to copulate with the opposite sex are infected with AIDS that keeps those who respect the sanctity of life, and reproduction, immune. It's all up in the air though, as there are genuinely gay-born people, and they are spared, but a lot of them are perverts taken to extremism, when they were not born gay, and they get infected with AIDS, and judged by intelligent parasites who control the world and ensure genetic variability and some kind of harmony. They know what you're thinking, as in, God knows your thoughts, and tests your reactions with dreams. The mind, conscience is noncomputable even to them, as it relies on some quantum mechanical fluctuation as the core source of new random thought that gets filtered before it becomes a conscious idea, though personalities and behavioral traits make the whole world computable ahead for about 20-40 years. But it's not possible to predict what people will think, therefore what will happen in the world in the distant future.

    15. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by sillybilly · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      There is a lot of joking about sheep fucking in Scotland, but I don't think it's practiced much. And even if it is, it does not turn people into pure sheep only fuckers, who don't even get hard from a woman. Though there is such a thing as jaded, too much of women or too much pussy may make you lose your excitement over it after a while, and then something brand new and fresh and exciting, like sheep booty, may still get you excited, so it's all very complicated. Getting bored of the same old same old booty is what keeps the US divorce rate over 50%, nothing else. I mean job and economic stress helps at it, but it does comes down to sexual appetite and getting bored. Then you get crazy things like threesomes and swinger parties, where the couples are not jealous and can stick together for longer, but usually it happens by a jealous exclusive couple catching one of the partners cheating, and then it's over. Cheating cheating cheating. Why you consider it cheating? Ask to come along next time instead, and save your marriage, especially if you still got kids at home dependent on a stable family in their most vulnerable and sensitive teen years.

    16. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by jefe7777 · · Score: 1

      always be careful with bush meat.

      one wrong move, and a portion of your paycheck will be commandeered for 18 years.

    17. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by Silent+Node · · Score: 1

      I got confused for a moment and thought I was browsing reddit.

      --
      "You can't win. You can't break even. You can't quit." -A. Ginsberg
    18. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Substituting EVD (Ebola Virus Disease) for HIV/ SIV, and bats for primates ... and you've got a good description of the probable source mechanism of the current Ebola outbreaks in West and Central Africa.

      Incidentally, "improper animal handling procedures resulting in blood-to-blood contact" may include chopping up an infected animal for dinner (as most people envisage it), or digging bits of splattered bat out of the radiator of your car or from your clothing after the bat has become road kill. Which is certainly what worries us and our medical advisers as we travel near to infected areas.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    19. Re: Nature is fighting against gays... by lewi · · Score: 1

      Seems gays made their own mess by causing AIDS to be identified with homosexuality. It took a kid dying of AIDS (Ryan White) to get the public to realize that it wasn't just a gay disease. Some asshats had even beat the kid to death because they assumed that he had to be gay.

      It is so sad that the general public can be so stupid. Simple logic says that AIDS has nothing to do with homosexuality. Consider that AIDS is a crossover virus from apes. That means that a gay disease was prevalent among apes. That means there must be a sizable gay ape population.

      What about feline HIV? I don't know any gay cats, but there must be a sizable gay cat population. So is nature punishing gay animals and it took until 1980 for God to get around to punishing human homosexuality although homosexuality has existed for thousands of years.

  3. Wonderful title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I did'nt know there were AIDS patients growing on trees...

    1. Re:Wonderful title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha, yeah, I found the title awkward, too.

    2. Re:Wonderful title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm wondering if it's deadly to other patients too.

  4. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    AIDS patients grow on trees now?

    1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell no - they grow on balls. Better check your testicles, you may find a gay attached to them by his lips, or by his rectum.

    2. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In California they do.

    3. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, heck, Southern California is the land of the fruits, nuts, and flakes - so some of them must grow on trees!

    4. Re:Huh? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      All of California, west of the coast range is the land of fruits, nuts and flakes.

      The rest is pretty normal.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:Huh? by luttapi · · Score: 1

      No. it must be 13 year-olds that grow on trees.

  5. the cure for AIDS by slashmydots · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Yay, she found a cure for AIDS. Spread it around and kill them all so they can stop infecting people.

    1. Re:the cure for AIDS by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, it's people who have AIDS that spread it, not people with asymptomatic HIV, right?

      I mean, I get that you're just trying to be funny by being a shitty person, but could you pretend to be a shitty person who also isn't completely ignorant?

    2. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why am I not surprised at this kind of comment on slashdot. The only thing missing is a jab at women and H1Bs to round it off.

    3. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      He's not being a shitty person. HIV/AIDS patients should have been killed decades ago. Since all of you feel good do-gooders wont let that happen, millions and millions more people are now infected and dying. So thank you for being the shitty person and exposing everyone else to one of the worst diseases on earth because you're too much of a pussy to actually do what should be done.

    4. Re:the cure for AIDS by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that killing off people with a disease tends to make people who have the disease a good bit quieter about it, which is harmful to eradication. If you want to throw down blame, it would be those that didn't do anything to stop it because it was a disease that seemed to only affect socially undesirably groups.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    5. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone pointed this out last time: Africa. Hello retarded AC? Are you there? I can't hear your answer on that.

    6. Re:the cure for AIDS by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "our" methods have caused huge reductions in new infections. Your methods at work in places in subsaharan Africa(until recently at least) have led to ignorance, violence, and huge spikes in infections as people try to home remedy HIV away.

    7. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Killing those infected with HIV would contribute to the spread of the virus by eliminating voluntary participation in HIV tests.

    8. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about this, kill yourself.

    9. Re:the cure for AIDS by orlanz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Assuming that society takes the moral hit and people buy into the concept by not hiding their infections from testing (basically society as a whole accepts self-sacrifice based on a test)...

      Most infectious type of people are not discovered till it is too late. This is a very slow virus. You could be a carrier for months to years and be a vector without showing up positive in a test. Killing off an AIDS victim is kind of pointless, for the virus, the host is well past the diminishing returns curve. Even one that has tested positive for HIV.

      Even if you do find and kill off every HIV patient, it won't kill off the virus. Its origins are from other mammals (this version being chimps). Unless you intend to kill everything that has this virus or a potential parent of it. At which point you would also start targeting other currently non-lethal immune system attacking viruses.

      So the road above is fairly stupid, comes primarily from ignorance & fear, and in the end, doesn't work. If people don't commit to killing themselves based on a test, the above will actually make the HIV/AIDS situation worse as it will go underground.

      The better solution is to let the people live and use them to find a cure. This way, we not only solve the current situation, but also similar mutations in the future. By letting people live, we have already discovered some folks who are immune to AIDS!

    10. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Killing them is barbaric, but I wonder if a quarantine would not have done some good.

      That said, STIs are pretty much one of the main reasons why homosexuals were looked down on in the first place. If you read about ancient views of it, you'll see that every other mention talks about them getting sick.

    11. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that'll be my response to the next time that I choose to do something that clearly risks further spreading a pandemic that has killed millions, so my dick can feel good for a few minutes.

      It's your fault, society. You should have pre-emptively done something about the consequences of my actions.

      (Yeah yeah, "-1, Troll". Fire away at facts. FWIW, I don't primarily blame gays. I blame the heterosexual pre-murderers in Africa--regardless of skin color.)

    12. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HIV/AIDS patients won't infect you if you don't fuck them.

    13. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So make them mandatory. Problem, comrade?

    14. Re:the cure for AIDS by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Many Arab states are doing exactly as you suggest and claim to have no AIDs. Cuba is pretty close. We'll see how it turns out.

      I'm predicting many unexplained deaths of 'lingering illness' (in the Arab world anyhow). They all use the prison definition of gay. Only the catchers are gay, the top fags are just normal Arabs.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    15. Re:the cure for AIDS by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      You realize the huge fraction of HIV/AIDS in heterosexuals? This is not due to gays pretending to be straight to fit in, but because normal missionary style heterosexual sex can also transmit the virus.

    16. Re:the cure for AIDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you can get it without sex just as well.

    17. Re:the cure for AIDS by chooks · · Score: 1

      You could be a carrier for months to years and be a vector without showing up positive in a test.

      Just for the record, this is not correct. While it is true that there is an eclipse period during which testing is not useful (as indeed, there is an eclipse period for any viral infection), for HIV that window is currently very small.

      See:

      • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monitoring selected national HIV prevention and care objectives by using HIV surveillance dataâ"United States and 6 dependent areasâ"2011. HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report 2013;18(No. 5). http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/library/reports/ surveillance/. Published October 2013.
      • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Association of Public Health Laboratories. Laboratory Testing for the Diagnosis of HIV Infection: Updated Recommendations. Available at http://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/23447. Published June 27, 2014..
      --
      -- The Genesis project? What's that?
  6. thankfully by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fortunately, there are but a few AIDS patients growing on trees.

  7. The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thirteen year olds have access to the results of genetic testing and do basic analysis on them. The tools that are available for people to do science is amazing. It is a good time to be alive. Now if we could only find a way to convince the politicians and parents to let teachers share these insights without forcing students to sit in chairs and be lectured at all day.

    1. Re:The Tools of Science by timrod · · Score: 5, Informative

      As great as that sounds, it's actually not the case here. The article states that the girl's father is an infectious disease researcher at UCLA and she was sending the samples to a lab at Duke to be DNA-sequenced. It seems like most of what she did was collect samples of the fungus for her father - an interesting summer project, but not exactly hard science.

    2. Re:The Tools of Science by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Tenured professors at universities get their names on papers for less work than that.

    3. Re:The Tools of Science by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      The question is, how come it took a 13 year old student to find the fungus that is literally growing on the trees in the area where they knew the fungus had to be?

      Did nobody at all think to go look for it before this 13 year old girl? Seriously?

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:The Tools of Science by sjames · · Score: 5, Informative

      So why didn't the hard scientists already know where the fungus was coming from?

      That's right, because they didn't do the science. The girl in TFA did.

    5. Re:The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So another case of Daddy's Girl Science. At least she didn't steal credit from someone else, like that other girl did.

    6. Re:The Tools of Science by EmagGeek · · Score: 2

      It's called Montessori School, and it's wonderful.

    7. Re: The Tools of Science by Stickerboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because honestly no one in medicine cares. There's not just one single environmental source of Cryptococcus, pigeons for example are known carriers. Getting rid of these trees is not going to prevent Cryptococcus infections anytime soon. What will prevent them is getting the HIV in the infected properly treated on a combination antiviral regimen so their own immune system can prevent the infection in the first place.

      --
      Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
    8. Re:The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a fuckin men. The I really liked your research paper so I'm submitting it to journal XYZ with my name as the lead author.

    9. Re:The Tools of Science by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Yes it is. I sent my daughter to an MS. It was a drain at the time but worth every penny. An aside - she now teaches mid-school physics and physical sciences with an elective in robotics. She's in heaven.

    10. Re:The Tools of Science by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Since when is collecting samples and cataloging them not hard science? Not particularly difficult, but most definitely hard science.

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    11. Re: The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Yes, but now faggots will know not to go wrap their arms around trees to hang on while they get pounded from behind. This knowledge will save lives.

    12. Re:The Tools of Science by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Informative

      The student sampled 109 swabs of more than 30 tree species and 58 soil samples, grew and isolated the Cryptococcus fungus and then sent those specimens to Springer at Duke. Springer DNA-sequenced the samples from California and compared the sequences to those obtained from HIV/AIDS patients with C. gattii infections.

      Oh look, the "hard scientists" actually did the science.

      Dukeâ(TM)s chairman of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Joseph Heitman M.D., was contacted by longtime collaborator and UCLA infectious disease specialist Scott Filler, M.D., whose daughter Elan was looking for a project to work on during her summer break. They decided it would be fun to send her out in search of fungi living in the greater Los Angeles area.

      The girl didn't figure out where the fungus was coming from, nor did she even come up with the idea to sample fungus herself. The scientists knew it was coming from somewhere in the environment and, since they had an offer of help collecting samples, allowed the student to assist them.

      The girl did not do the science. She just assisted the scientists with the manual labor.

    13. Re:The Tools of Science by Ronin+Developer · · Score: 1

      Incorrect. She used her father's influence to get a position collecting samples. She was responsible for collecting the samples and sending them for analysis. After DNA sequencing, the results were compared against the profile of an AIDS patient and then sent back to her.

      From the article..."She was surprised to find that specimens from three of the tree species were genetically almost indistinguishable from the patient specimens.".

      That was several years ago. Since her initial findings, the researchers (I believe her father is one of them), established the latest findings through further research and analysis.

      But, it was her work that discovered the fungus and its similarity to what infected AIDS patients. That is how it supposed to work - the work of one researcher is expounded upon and extended by another. The fact that she had access to the DNA sequencing because of her father's influence is inconsequential. When I did my research for a science project, I had brief access to a university vacuum chamber - I was a high school student. I asked for a sponsor who had the equipment I needed. This is no different.

    14. Re: The Tools of Science by LearningHard · · Score: 1

      Healthy people catch this to. My father is an example.

    15. Re:The Tools of Science by sjames · · Score: 1, Troll

      You sound bitter.

    16. Re:The Tools of Science by nbauman · · Score: 1

      As great as that sounds, it's actually not the case here. The article states that the girl's father is an infectious disease researcher at UCLA and she was sending the samples to a lab at Duke to be DNA-sequenced. It seems like most of what she did was collect samples of the fungus for her father - an interesting summer project, but not exactly hard science.

      That's pretty common. Your dad helps you with your science project.

      There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually a good thing. If you own a restaurant, you'd let your kid work there over the summer. If you're a medical researcher, you'd give your kid a little useful project to do over the summer.

    17. Re:The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She's a teacher - and she's dead? Amazing!

    18. Re: The Tools of Science by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 2

      pigeons for example are known carriers

      All the more reason to get rid of these rats with wings.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    19. Re:The Tools of Science by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      Since when is collecting samples and cataloging them not hard science? Not particularly difficult, but most definitely hard science.

      It is part of hard science, but it's the technician part. The scientist part is figuring out what problem to address, thinking of hypotheses to test, designing a methodology to test the hypotheses, and then executing the experiment and analyzing the gathered data.

      Finding a kid who has executed some scientific project is not rare. However, finding a kid who has done that without having the problem set up or at least directly motivated by a mentor (often a parent) is rare. Furthermore, it's even more rare to find a kid who has finished the experiment without resources provided by that mentor, often resources that are not readily available to most kids.

    20. Re:The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Im thinking she was going to do a science project on fungus of california, and she found something odd on the tree that her father noticed looks alot like a fungus found in AIDS patients. He ran a gene sequence and they were identical.

      much of science is Serendipity.

    21. Re:The Tools of Science by Krishnoid · · Score: 5, Funny

      The girl did not do the science. She just assisted the scientists with the manual labor.

      So she's, what, a grad student?

    22. Re:The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus fucking whatever.....
      Lets big the girl up!
      No, lets run her down!
      The girl did fucking science!!! You think science doesn't involve manual labour? Science is something you do....these results wouldn't have happened without the girl.....the girl did science.

    23. Re:The Tools of Science by ediron2 · · Score: 2

      Science is proper data collection, too. She did science.

      Don't get me wrong, GP does seem to have a hate going for scientists -- Maybe there's an innocent reason; maybe they've got a bad case of the Mondays, or maybe they're just cromag antisci doofuses -- It sure seems like half the stuff that spins people up boils down to simple-minded people getting everything deconstructed and predigested down to shittily-written innacurate morality plays and 'ooga booga' sorts of us-vs-them scary narratives. One common narrative is jumping to a wrong "Yaaay, a girl proved science bad, scientists lazy!!" conclusion.

      Very unscientific of them. Let's all take 5 seconds to be quietly shocked... ... but don't shit on either the girl (not named) or Doctors Heitman, Filler (or their unnamed and doubtless overworked/underpaid grad assistants). This is only getting press because nimrods like those tidy narratives. In a perfect world, it'd be a better article, linked to 'how you can do this, too' instructables etc.

    24. Re:The Tools of Science by Whiternoise · · Score: 1

      Relevant Rutherford: all science is either physics or stamp collecting.

    25. Re:The Tools of Science by sjames · · Score: 1

      Or just pointing out that the girl did science and (in the same sense as saying Sir Issac Newton did not discover radium) the other scientists didn't do that particular science.

    26. Re:The Tools of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is exactly what grad student would do; and get cited on the research paper.
      Sure she didn't solve it on her own, but she contributed in a meaningful way.

      What you did with your summer vacation?

    27. Re:The Tools of Science by Sciath · · Score: 1

      Confirmation bias? Children will be successful if they want to be successful regardless of the school. I could use the same argument for public school because both daughters of mine did well in public school. Both have university level degrees (magna and summa cum laude), one has a masters and both have successful careers in education. They both went to public school. So I could say their school was "wonderful". The facts would support that each individual determines their own fate not necessarily the institution.

      --
      "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
  8. Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by flayzernax · · Score: -1, Troll

    So we are going to sterilize and weaken our entire ecosystem to save a few unfortunate people and bring ruination to the planet?

    Pretty fucking retarded. And this is a god damn retarded article. I mean what is this now FARK?

    1. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, we already did that 50 years ago to keep flayzernax and friends in burgers and fries 50 years ago.

    2. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean all the fat bitches driving gas guzzling SuV's and supporting the industries that are lobbying against any productive advancement of the human race, like you.

      Fucking shills :(

      Captcha: Luxuries, because their your god given right, amiright? sad fact is we could all live in luxury if it werent for greedy shelfish fearful assholes making decisions for the betterment of the rest of us.

      Let nature take its motherfucking course you piece of shit.

    3. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So we are going to sterilize and weaken our entire ecosystem to save a few unfortunate people and bring ruination to the planet?

      Wow, way to completely miss the point of the story. Who the hell said anything about sterilizing the planet? If anything, its just a risk factor for people with compromised immune systems. That is, people with AIDS or other immune disorders, undergoing chemotherapy etc, those people shouldn't go walking around in the woods in California.

      Pretty fucking retarded. And this is a god damn retarded article. I mean what is this now FARK?

      Perhaps you are the one who should be checking yourself for mental defects........

    4. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by flayzernax · · Score: -1, Troll

      You mean the wholesale destruction of marine ecosystems via fertalizer and horrible pesticides like DDT and Chlordane. And to respond to AC's comment below:

      We did not need the green revolution to survive and create sustainable food and good life. That was sold to you by people with money and power and now is justified in the name of all the ungrateful greedy assholes who think they are entitled to heart bypass surgery after years of sugary hamburger buns.

      IDGAF about burgers. I give a fuck about living an ideologically moral and ethical life and improving our condition and I will speak up against that which is both scientifically and spiritually fucked.

      Go die in a fire now bitch.

    5. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by flayzernax · · Score: 1

      The article hinted at containing and controlling the pathogen and the ecosystem. IMO a wholesale waste of effort for a few people who, really are more of a symptom of our medicine and cultural practices. No they don't deserve to die, and yes it's good they know not to go to California, but that is not how the article nor the slashdot summary was spun.

    6. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      IDGAF about burgers either. I'm a halfass vegetarian, meaning I eat burgers sometimes, but most of the time, not. Burgers are too much of a luxury item, I prefer frying my own rice instead, it's pretty cheap. A whole lot of the world survives on a cup of rice a day, and I'm blessed that I get many cups a day, and can add things like carrots and spices. In Indonesia - or old Dutch Indies colonies - , for instance, a country that usually does not show up on the spotlight of top population charts like China, India, US, they have pushed the limit of rice farming to the brinks, up to the mountaintops and hill tops, there is nowhere left to push farming rice. There is lots of population that needs food every day, and people can't help themselves, like you can't issue a presidential decree to people to stop fucking. There should be a holiday, like there is Earth Day, etc, called fuck free day where the whole population does not fuck or masturbate or fuck that day, just to prove they are able to do it. And of course some won't celebrate. As in, you idiots keep your no fucking day, me, I'm gonna pop a new baby as fast as I can while there is free welfare money to take care of the baby.

    7. Re:Everything is deadly to AIDs patients by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      Hey, at least the AIDS infected homos are not consuming welfare money with their sexual exuberance, the rest of us don't have to pay for them not being able to keep their dicks out of each other's pants.

  9. Aids not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of the people carrying the incurable disease rather than trying to cure it?

    We should do the same with people who have Ebola instead of letting them travel all over the world and infecting others.

    And maybe we should start discouraging people who are not genetically compatible from breeding so as to reduce the number of people who suffer from crippling defects.

    1. Re:Aids not the problem by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      Because the incurable disease comes after the infectious period begins, numbnuts.

      I'm sure you have magic moron powers that will let you detect people infected with HIV who don't yet have AIDS, but the rest of us depend on science and medicine to solve health problems.

    2. Re:Aids not the problem by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Sounds like a great way to get rid of the Flu or Cold.

    3. Re:Aids not the problem by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      I think we can be 100% at this point that if we had spend the money and time we have on trying to develop a cure, on prevention, detection, and education that it would of did a whole lot more good.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    4. Re: Aids not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      You can't test for HIV?

      I guess I was wrong.

    5. Re: Aids not the problem by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Oh, right, so your plan is to implement the (unreliable, which you'd know if you weren't a moron) HIV test across the entire population, in order to commit mass murder for the high crime of having caught a disease.

      Please kill yourself next time you catch a cold.

    6. Re: Aids not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      ...but the flu and the cold aren't 100 percent fatal to everyone that is infected with them.

      Aids/grid and Ebola are. Why do all the horrible diseases come from Africa? Maybe we should burn everything that came that continent. :)

    7. Re:Aids not the problem by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Informative

      We have spent a ton of money on prevent education and detection. And it has done a lot of good.

      Infections are way down.
      http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/new...

    8. Re:Aids not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since you post the same thing the other guy posted above, and since my time is too limited to keep reading this kind of... thing, let me point you to this page:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

      which explains why the easy way, like you and others say it, could mean severe dangers to mankind.

      In short, no, your idea would not work. And we are soft of heart. We are prudent, sensible. Also, in spite of us being soft of heart, please be aware there has been some persecution against heartless individuals in the past.

      Perhaps it would be safer to learn to pose as a normal human.

    9. Re: Aids not the problem by orlanz · · Score: 1

      You can test for HIV, but the patient becomes a vector for infection prior to the test working.

    10. Re:Aids not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of the people carrying the incurable disease rather than trying to cure it?"

      Well, no.

      First because the people that have AIDS are not carriers. The carriers are the people who have not yet (sometimes will never) developed symptoms. Those are almost never detected.

      "And maybe we should start discouraging people who are not genetically compatible from breeding so as to reduce the number of people who suffer from crippling defects."

      So you are in favor of a law mandating mixed marriages then?

      I mean, come on, all these inbred 'white' people breeding back into the tree every generation is not going to do us any good.

    11. Re:Aids not the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are you going to find them all to get rid of them? Round up everybody and force them to submit to HIV testing? Or are you going to wait until they voluntarily report themselves to the death squad?

      dom

    12. Re: Aids not the problem by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      For other STDs, public health authorities engage in contract tracking. But AIDs has lobbiests. If the syphilitic can't get it together to buy a congress critter or two, why is that AIDs patient's problem?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    13. Re:Aids not the problem by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Sorry but your mom was begging for it, and without protection. So there you are.

  10. Sentence structure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, this fungus, it's only deadly to AIDS patients growing on trees? What about normal aids patients?

  11. It's a right-wing government conspiracy! by mmell · · Score: 3, Funny
    1) Create a disease which targets gays, blacks and IV drug users. Check.

    2) Disseminate a fungus which grows on trees so we can target those left-wing tree-huggers. Check.

    3) ???

    4) Profit!!!

    Damnit - I forgot the part where we nuke the whales. Oh, well - nothing's perfect.

    1. Re:It's a right-wing government conspiracy! by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

      Damnit - I forgot the part where we nuke the whales.

      Better to it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  12. On trees? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Good thing there are'nt many aids patients growing on trees, not im my neighborhood anyways.

  13. Young person does something amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stories like these always have a common thread: the parent is actually generating the ideas and likely doing the work and providing expertise. This is no different:

    "...longtime collaborator and UCLA infectious disease specialist Scott Filler, M.D., whose daughter Elan..."

    It is like someone saying this 12 year old is an amazing football player, but then you learn later that their father Pele takes all the shots.

    1. Re:Young person does something amazing! by ganjadude · · Score: 2

      even so, its nice to see a father and child doing research, even if she is not old enough to fully understand it all

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  14. Modifier fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    AIDS patients are growing on trees now? No wonder we can't control this epidemic!

  15. English isn't my native language, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    I think there's something wrong with the headline. Can someone parse "13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly To AIDS Patients Growing On Trees" for me? It sounds like there are AIDS patients growing on trees, but that can't be right.

    1. Re:English isn't my native language, but... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Interesting

      English is a naturally ambiguous language, and there are two gramatically correct parsings of that headline.

      It's a bit like "fruit flies like a banana"

    2. Re:English isn't my native language, but... by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      Only two? I think that grammatically any of the three nouns could be the one that's growing on trees. The 13-year-old growing on trees is even more semantically problematic than the AIDS patients.

    3. Re:English isn't my native language, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      user@host ~$ 13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly To AIDS Patients Growing On Trees
      13-Year-Old: command not found.

      Seems that 13-Year-Old has done it witout being commanded. Interesting...

    4. Re:English isn't my native language, but... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Subject verb agreement kills that parsing.

    5. Re:English isn't my native language, but... by glwtta · · Score: 1

      English is a naturally ambiguous language

      What an odd thing to say. It's not any more or less ambiguous than almost any other language.

      You do, however, need to apply a modicum of effort to make sure that whatever word slop you just barfed on the page is readable to others. Slashdot "editors" notoriously refuse to do so, though.

      --
      sic transit gloria mundi
    6. Re:English isn't my native language, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would "13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly to AIDS Patients Grows On Trees" be wrong? IMHO that clearly expresses what is meant, i.e. she finds that the fungus grows on trees. The ambiguous headline - at best - expresses that she finds the fungus as it is growing (on trees). The difference is subtle: One is a generalized result, the other is a data point. (Again, not a native speaker.)

  16. /. Is getting so slow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    This was on NPR last week. I have quit reading here.

    1. Re:/. Is getting so slow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Congratulations, you're ready for an account. Nobody reads here. This is a place for writing.

  17. Missleading title by Technician · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I have not seen any AIDS patients growing on trees so this should not be an issue. :-)

    --
    The truth shall set you free!
    1. Re:Missleading title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They've all already died from the fungus.

  18. Blame Africa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    If we let all of the niggers die off, they will stop fucking monkeys and other animals, stop getting infected with incurable diseases, and stop destroying the world. ...and Africa, which is actually very beautiful and can be a very prosperous continent once all the subhuman beasts have been removed from the land. Hell, we should do that in America, too. All they do is smoke crack, sell their foodstamps to buy crack, rape, murder, thieve, get drunk, and do everything they can to turn the USA into the nightmare that every African nation is.

    1. Re:Blame Africa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I think the only person fucking monkeys is whatever poor sod is unfortunate enough to be in bed with you.

    2. Re: Blame Africa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I am an African American (not by choice), so it is acceptable for me to refer to my peers as "niggers". That being said, I find the behavior and attitudes of most of my kind deplorable, and I truly believe that niggers should be removed, in all their forms, from the earth, so that the white man can turn the planet into a utopia.

    3. Re: Blame Africa by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      I am an African American (not by choice)

      Really? Not by choice? Weird. Where I live, we all get to choose our skincolor right up to our birthdate. After that it's set in stone, though. But thanks for clearing that up for me. Otherwise I'd have thought you'd volunteered or something.

      Oh, and by the way? Get help. You obviously cought Trollitis from a tree that snuggled up close.

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  19. Terrible title... by Chiller · · Score: 1

    How many AIDS patients grow on trees?

  20. The rhyming tree by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    There's a fungus among us.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  21. It was thee WHO. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    AIDS was fabricated in a lab by The W.H.O. Not being sarcastic or trite.

  22. Fungus by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

    "There's a humongous fungus among us." -- Zoidberg

    --
    Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
  23. The disinformation continues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't believe this disinformation still continues, especially on Slashdot.

    So, let's go over this one more time.

    HIV DOES NOT CAUSE AIDS.

    HIV DOES NOT KILL PEOPLE.

    It's the medical establishment that has convinced people with HIV that they need to kill themselves with toxic drugs that destroy the liver, kidneys and pancreas.

  24. 13 year old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly To AIDS Patients Growing On Trees
    This statement states that AIDS victims grow on trees.
    Should not the statement read?

    13-Year-Old finds fungus growing on trees deadly to AIDS Patients.

    1. Re:13 year old by pscottdv · · Score: 1

      Now you've got the trees being deadly.

      A fungus deadly to AIDS patients was found by a 13-year-old to be growing on trees.

      The passive voice has it's uses.

      --

      this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

    2. Re:13 year old by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

      So the trees are deadly, not the fungus? Hmm...interesting twist to the story. Why not: aids patients find deadly trees growing on 13-year-old. That would be something of a scientic marvel.

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
  25. Not just AIDS patients and not just in CA by LearningHard · · Score: 5, Informative

    My father in the mid-south had a 3 year long struggle with this infection. It has left him a completely different person (three tumors in his brain). This is a nasty disease that was previously sub-tropical and is making its way into North America. The treatment is really nasty.

    Amphotericin B has terrible common side effects and the nurses had a nickname for it that was something like "Ampho the Terrible."

    Flucytosine is also used and it has a dramatic effect on the mental state of the patient.

    During the time my father was taking these medications he suffered kidney failure, massive weight loss, constant nausea and vomiting, poor impulse control (to the point that it was like he had no filter to stop him from saying or doing anything). I'm very glad my father is still alive but even two years removed he still is suffering the effects of this illness.

    1. Re:Not just AIDS patients and not just in CA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I had something similar happen to me this year but the fungus was Blastomycosis instead. I was on ampoterrorist B daily for two months, the first month in a coma in ICU, I was lucky I tolerated it rather well. The blasto nearly killed me they told my wife there was only a 20% chance I would survive. I did suffer bad weight loss but I attribute that mainly to the disease, I lost 54 lbs total.

  26. Hold On by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So a 13-yr old finds a fungus on a tree that kills Aids Patients, or kills Patients with Aids, or just Patients in general and the kid lived !?

    So the next story will be about the fungus can kill Global Human Climate Warming.

    Ha ha. What a knee slapper.

  27. Umm. by azav · · Score: 1

    Isn't everything deadly to AIDS patients?

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...