"A protein called cynovirin binds to HIV and prevents it from entering cells in the mucous membranes - a feat confirmed in both laboratory and animal studies."
This raises some issues.
First of all, proteins are notoriously easily taken care of by antibodies. Very small peptides are an exception, since they often are too small for the variable region of antibodies to bind to them strongly enough. The article doesn't mention the molecular weight.
Also, HIV mutates very quickly, especially gp120 which cynovirin is said to bind to in a published article (Vaginal microbicides and teenagers. Current Opinion in Obstetrics & Gynecology. 15(5):371-375, October 2003. Rupp, Richard E.; Rosenthal, Susan L.). This protein probably can't bind even 5% of the HIV variants which exist to date and if this is used as a drug in a patient, resistance is a breeze to develop.
But even if this and dozens of other problems were circumvented somehow, it still wouldn't "cure" HIV, only slow down infection a bit. It doesn't work on already infected cells and since it's a protein, you'd need to supply it by IV injection, unlike the existing HAART drugs.
A much better strategy (currently in development) is binding to *human* proteins which are required for viral binding or replication. This would prevent resistance. The mutations in patients with slow or no progression to AIDS might give clues about the proteins we should investigate.
It's not really surprising how deeply rooted the "virus equals evil" idea is in most people, but some of the comments here are nothing more than FUD.
First of all: this virus was never "eradicated". There was no vaccine, no miracle drug. Influenza is an RNA virus, so it mutates very quickly. Many of today's influenza viruses are actually descendants of the spanish flu. And they're usually more successful because they're not very deadly.
1918 was just the perfect time for a deadly pandemic. The economy was a mess, there was a major war going on and people were hungry all over the Western world. The spanish flu spread like wildfire and infected virtually everyone, but the human species is genetically diverse enough to (as a whole) survive even the worst viruses. For one, there are hundreds of different versions of Major Histocompatibily Complexes among us. You have one, 99% chance your neighbour has another, each with a different specialization. The spanish flu probably killed a lot of people with the MHC especially unsuited for fighting it. MHC evolution and genetic diversity
It may sound ridiculous, but viruses of the past likely made us human in the first place. The human genome contains proteins that might have been useful to survive prehistoric plagues, but perform different functions today. For examply, you might have a protein that happens to bind rather strongly to a viral anchor protein from 900 million years ago, but with a minor mutation it might just as well facilitate mammalian cellular respiration.
And then there's retroviruses. Since those can be inherited through infected germline cells, it can become very interesting for a virus to become mutually symbiotic (a dead host doesn't reproduce all that well, now does it). Chimp caught a virus, became human
Some environmentalists like to call the human species a virus. They may be right in an entirely unintended way: a substantial part of our genome consists of viral DNA.
5) Educating Users
So you are saying that we have to do security without teaching users how to do it. That just isn't going to work unless you never let users install their own applications or plug-ins. Yes teaching users is hard, but it has to be a vital part.
"Hard"? That's quite an understatement. A certain ridiculously heavy and ergonomic DEC keyboard of mine would look a lot better if it was just "hard".
No, this has absolutely nothing to do with the stains on the upper right corner vaguely reminiscent of human brain tissue. That was coffee. Seriously.
dyke
n 1: offensive terms for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine
[syn: {butch}, {dike}]
2: a barrier constructed to contain the flow of water or to
keep out the sea [syn: {dam}, {dike}, {levee}]
v : enclose with a dike; "dike the land to protect it from
water" [syn: {dike}]
dike
n 1: offensive terms for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine
[syn: {butch}, {dyke}]
2: a barrier constructed to contain the flow of water or to
keep out the sea [syn: {dam}, {dyke}, {levee}]
v : enclose with a dike; "dike the land to protect it from
water" [syn: {dyke}]
But even if we pretend it's true: since this was the early 1970s in a small Russian town, vitamin supplements can't have been responsible for that man's age anyway.
Thanks to the popularity of supplements since the 1970s, there have been lots of people who tried to extend their lifespan with vitamins.
You might remember some from shady documentaries. Actually, you might've found one of those shady documentaries very convincing. There's just one problem: These people don't get any older than you or me.
And then there are those who think "vitamins are always healthy" and increase the dosage way beyond the recommended range. Thanks to those brave souls now know that especially vitamin E can significantly DECREASE your lifespan. Too bad they hadn't heard of the previous test results in mice.
In fact there is something "tried and trusted" you can do to increase your lifespan. It's making sure you have constant nutritional deficiencies, in other words: caloric restriction.
On a server I needed to remotely manually replace libc with an older version file from another machine. Ofcause you have to remember to do everything in a single command otherwise if you delete the old version you cannot run anything else. (I am sure there must be a simpler solution to that than take the disk out and do it on another machine)
Leave Midnight Commander running on another terminal. Since it doesn't rely on outside commands, you can still use it to recover the backup, just in case.
Some of my most embarassing whoopsONOOOO-moments:
1) Doing ls some-dir in/, then doing rm -rf * while thinking that some-dir was my cwd.
2) When recovering the backup after that, it appeared that I'd broken the backup script three months ago when I patched it to skip/tmp.
3) Leaving the computer on while "repairing" the CPU fan and smashing the motherboard up beyond any recognition when the screwdriver slips.
4) Defragging a disk under Windows 98 which has tons of large data files from Linux apps on it. Since the standard win98 defrag has a rather low partition size limit, I use the Microsoft BackOffice defragger. For some reason it corrupts the entire drive irrepairably.
5) Drinking coffee while installing RAM into a box lying down on the floor below me... Not much imagination needed for this one.
...that people wise enough not to use IE are also wise enough to spend less time browsing the web and more time having a good time outside during summer!
It is not uncommon for the smaller bloodvessels to simply disappear and appear over time to facilitate changes in energy consumption. A tiny inflammation can also cause the surrounding vessels to change themselves quite significantly. Wouldn't want to be denied my own money suddenly.
Converting a userbase of idio...err... average users to linux will almost certainly introduce viruses. No amount of technology will prevent fools from being ingenious.
On the other hand, greater amounts of users would also make the linux market profitable, bringing in more drivers, applications, games(!) and commercial support.
Before that ever happens, however, you'd need to have the Linux dumbed down to something that treats you like a drooling, brain-damaged four-year-old before the mainstream would switch from windows xp.
And of course, the average drooling, brain-damaged four-year old can't compile from source, now can (s)he? And too many options are just confusing for the user, only a small percentage of people use more than the top-3 options. Differences between boxen? Complicated. We need to standardise everything to the average needs! Etcetcetc, you know where this goes.
The bottom line is that we, slashdot readers, probably make up for a large part of that "small percentage".
I *want* Linux to provide options that would confuse a luser. I *want* terminals that look scary to lusers. I *want* an editor a luser can't possibly use. I *want* to edit the kernel source, fine-tune it and then compile it myself.
Almost everything we love about Linux, leaves the average user puzzled and confused and is thus incompatible with a large user base.
Whenever intelligent, but otherwise computer-illiterate, friends are over here and seem puzzled by my computer, I avoid talking about computers and Linux. It's impossible to make them understand and even if I could *make* them understand (obligatory cattle prod reference omitted), is it worth the trouble? Converting them would only make me their tech-support slaves.
It's in my interest to keep the mainstream away from Linux.
It's seven billion lightyears away! The article specifically notes that the great distance makes it even more special.
And because it's so far away, while still in focus, we can look back further than ever before. It'll be interesting to see some theories about the early universe shattered to pieces.
Why aren't hibernating mammals eaten alive by microorganisms? (yes there was a discussion before) Well, apparantly their immune system is actually disabled. However, they wake up periodically, specifically to fight off any infections.
Humans can't do this if their cytochrome C is inhibited by hydrogen sulfide, so if you ever do this with humans, you'd have to make sure they wake up periodically to prevent all kinds of nastyness.
Bats seem to have a different strategy. They stay in deep hibernation for prolonged periods up to 90 days, but their biochemistry changes quite drastically in order to do this. It's unlikely that human cells are able to change themselves so drastically.
My guess would be that it could indeed slow aging.
At the lower temperature, all biochemstry, especially catalyzed by enzymes, is much much slower. That biochemistry includes cellular division, oxidative phosporylation and as a result, the telomeres are shortened slower and radicals are formed at a lower rate.
But I still don't think you'd live long enough to benefit. See my other reply.
Slashdot Mirror
See this article http://www.discover.com/issues/may-04/departments/ cryptography-of-voting-machines/?page=2
This raises some issues.
First of all, proteins are notoriously easily taken care of by antibodies. Very small peptides are an exception, since they often are too small for the variable region of antibodies to bind to them strongly enough. The article doesn't mention the molecular weight.
Also, HIV mutates very quickly, especially gp120 which cynovirin is said to bind to in a published article (Vaginal microbicides and teenagers. Current Opinion in Obstetrics & Gynecology. 15(5):371-375, October 2003. Rupp, Richard E.; Rosenthal, Susan L.). This protein probably can't bind even 5% of the HIV variants which exist to date and if this is used as a drug in a patient, resistance is a breeze to develop.
But even if this and dozens of other problems were circumvented somehow, it still wouldn't "cure" HIV, only slow down infection a bit. It doesn't work on already infected cells and since it's a protein, you'd need to supply it by IV injection, unlike the existing HAART drugs.
A much better strategy (currently in development) is binding to *human* proteins which are required for viral binding or replication. This would prevent resistance. The mutations in patients with slow or no progression to AIDS might give clues about the proteins we should investigate.
IANABY
for adult entertainment.
It's not really surprising how deeply rooted the "virus equals evil" idea is in most people, but some of the comments here are nothing more than FUD.
First of all: this virus was never "eradicated". There was no vaccine, no miracle drug. Influenza is an RNA virus, so it mutates very quickly. Many of today's influenza viruses are actually descendants of the spanish flu. And they're usually more successful because they're not very deadly.
1918 was just the perfect time for a deadly pandemic. The economy was a mess, there was a major war going on and people were hungry all over the Western world. The spanish flu spread like wildfire and infected virtually everyone, but the human species is genetically diverse enough to (as a whole) survive even the worst viruses. For one, there are hundreds of different versions of Major Histocompatibily Complexes among us.
You have one, 99% chance your neighbour has another, each with a different specialization. The spanish flu probably killed a lot of people with the MHC especially unsuited for fighting it.
MHC evolution and genetic diversity
It may sound ridiculous, but viruses of the past likely made us human in the first place. The human genome contains proteins that might have been useful to survive prehistoric plagues, but perform different functions today. For examply, you might have a protein that happens to bind rather strongly to a viral anchor protein from 900 million years ago, but with a minor mutation it might just as well facilitate mammalian cellular respiration.
And then there's retroviruses. Since those can be inherited through infected germline cells, it can become very interesting for a virus to become mutually symbiotic (a dead host doesn't reproduce all that well, now does it).
Chimp caught a virus, became human
Some environmentalists like to call the human species a virus. They may be right in an entirely unintended way: a substantial part of our genome consists of viral DNA.
I for one welcome our old virus overlords.
It saves those precious extra seconds when opening the case and keeps pesky users away.
"Hard"? That's quite an understatement. A certain ridiculously heavy and ergonomic DEC keyboard of mine would look a lot better if it was just "hard".
No, this has absolutely nothing to do with the stains on the upper right corner vaguely reminiscent of human brain tissue. That was coffee. Seriously.
Real men use vi, slimy emacs lusers!
I wonder how long before Bush declares war...
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
dyke
n 1: offensive terms for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine
[syn: {butch}, {dike}]
2: a barrier constructed to contain the flow of water or to
keep out the sea [syn: {dam}, {dike}, {levee}]
v : enclose with a dike; "dike the land to protect it from
water" [syn: {dike}]
Surprise surprise! They're *syn*onymous!
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
dike
n 1: offensive terms for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine
[syn: {butch}, {dyke}]
2: a barrier constructed to contain the flow of water or to
keep out the sea [syn: {dam}, {dyke}, {levee}]
v : enclose with a dike; "dike the land to protect it from
water" [syn: {dyke}]
...and the water will flow out automagically. Puts those old nukes to good use.
That article was later debunked.
O ils/totalhealth2004.html
http://www.healthwatcher.net/Quackerywatch/Young-
But even if we pretend it's true: since this was the early 1970s in a small Russian town, vitamin supplements can't have been responsible for that man's age anyway.
Thanks to the popularity of supplements since the 1970s, there have been lots of people who tried to extend their lifespan with vitamins.
You might remember some from shady documentaries. Actually, you might've found one of those shady documentaries very convincing. There's just one problem: These people don't get any older than you or me.
And then there are those who think "vitamins are always healthy" and increase the dosage way beyond the recommended range. Thanks to those brave souls now know that especially vitamin E can significantly DECREASE your lifespan. Too bad they hadn't heard of the previous test results in mice.
In fact there is something "tried and trusted" you can do to increase your lifespan. It's making sure you have constant nutritional deficiencies, in other words: caloric restriction.
on ThinkGeek? Sounds like the next best thing after coffee.
Leave Midnight Commander running on another terminal. Since it doesn't rely on outside commands, you can still use it to recover the backup, just in case.
Some of my most embarassing whoopsONOOOO-moments:
1) Doing ls some-dir in
2) When recovering the backup after that, it appeared that I'd broken the backup script three months ago when I patched it to skip
3) Leaving the computer on while "repairing" the CPU fan and smashing the motherboard up beyond any recognition when the screwdriver slips.
4) Defragging a disk under Windows 98 which has tons of large data files from Linux apps on it. Since the standard win98 defrag has a rather low partition size limit, I use the Microsoft BackOffice defragger. For some reason it corrupts the entire drive irrepairably.
5) Drinking coffee while installing RAM into a box lying down on the floor below me... Not much imagination needed for this one.
...that people wise enough not to use IE are also wise enough to spend less time browsing the web and more time having a good time outside during summer!
It is not uncommon for the smaller bloodvessels to simply disappear and appear over time to facilitate changes in energy consumption. A tiny inflammation can also cause the surrounding vessels to change themselves quite significantly. Wouldn't want to be denied my own money suddenly.
Converting a userbase of idio...err... average users to linux will almost certainly introduce viruses. No amount of technology will prevent fools from being ingenious.
On the other hand, greater amounts of users would also make the linux market profitable, bringing in more drivers, applications, games(!) and commercial support.
Before that ever happens, however, you'd need to have the Linux dumbed down to something that treats you like a drooling, brain-damaged four-year-old before the mainstream would switch from windows xp.
And of course, the average drooling, brain-damaged four-year old can't compile from source, now can (s)he? And too many options are just confusing for the user, only a small percentage of people use more than the top-3 options. Differences between boxen? Complicated. We need to standardise everything to the average needs! Etcetcetc, you know where this goes.
The bottom line is that we, slashdot readers, probably make up for a large part of that "small percentage".
I *want* Linux to provide options that would confuse a luser.
I *want* terminals that look scary to lusers.
I *want* an editor a luser can't possibly use.
I *want* to edit the kernel source, fine-tune it and then compile it myself.
Almost everything we love about Linux, leaves the average user puzzled and confused and is thus incompatible with a large user base.
Whenever intelligent, but otherwise computer-illiterate, friends are over here and seem puzzled by my computer, I avoid talking about computers and Linux. It's impossible to make them understand and even if I could *make* them understand (obligatory cattle prod reference omitted), is it worth the trouble? Converting them would only make me their tech-support slaves.
It's in my interest to keep the mainstream away from Linux.
It's seven billion lightyears away! The article specifically notes that the great distance makes it even more special.
And because it's so far away, while still in focus, we can look back further than ever before. It'll be interesting to see some theories about the early universe shattered to pieces.
Where should that go? Right after BrowserMatch "MSN" redirect-bitbucket?
Your corpse makes the lifejacket float.
The hardest obstacle in securing your network is the human factor. This book describes methods for dealing with the problem very efficiently:
x .html
http://bofhcam.org/co-larters/lart-reference/inde
Why aren't hibernating mammals eaten alive by microorganisms? (yes there was a discussion before) Well, apparantly their immune system is actually disabled. However, they wake up periodically, specifically to fight off any infections.
0 2074547.htm
/ 4/1153
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/0204
Humans can't do this if their cytochrome C is inhibited by hydrogen sulfide, so if you ever do this with humans, you'd have to make sure they wake up periodically to prevent all kinds of nastyness.
Bats seem to have a different strategy. They stay in deep hibernation for prolonged periods up to 90 days, but their biochemistry changes quite drastically in order to do this. It's unlikely that human cells are able to change themselves so drastically.
http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/83
I really wonder what would happen to a mouse if you induce hibernation for more than a month.
Buying hours and preventing damage would be a good purpose for artificial human hibernation, but I think space travel is a little far fetched.
Perhaps bats make enzymes with a lower optimum temperature in preperation for or in response to hibernation.
;-).
Either that or I'm terribly wrong
My guess would be that it could indeed slow aging.
At the lower temperature, all biochemstry, especially catalyzed by enzymes, is much much slower. That biochemistry includes cellular division, oxidative phosporylation and as a result, the telomeres are shortened slower and radicals are formed at a lower rate.
But I still don't think you'd live long enough to benefit. See my other reply.