Changing drug resistance of the AIDS virus

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From BBC news: Aids virus ‘could be weakening’

I’m not familiar with the HIV field of research, nor have I read this particular paper, but I strongly suspect that this refers to a small cohort, probably in Belgium (facts need to be checked when I have access to the paper). The way the AIDS virus is spread probably means that in different populations, the strains are vastly different. While it sounds like the recent viral samples they’ve extracted from their (untreated?) patients are more sensitive to drug treatment in cultured cells than virus samples collected 15-20 years ago, there’s no guarantee that the viruses in other populations are undergoing the same “attenutation” (or weakening). While I’m happy for those who have the weaker, more treatable, virus, I’ve seen reports that the exact opposite is happening in other studies, where an increase in drug-resistance is seen.

Let’s just hope those who pretend that AIDS is an epidemic that will just go away of its own accord fail to latch on to this particular finding.

Update: The BBC page has an audio link to an interview with Dr. Eric Artz. In summary, he refers to the way viruses lose pathogenicity (i.e. are less lethal) over time as the mechanism for survival of the virus. And suggests this may be happening with HIV-1, and could mean the virus will cause fewer fatalities in several decade.

My understanding: With viruses that are dependent on their hosts to survive and replicate, the adage “survival of the fittest” is not always true. A super-strong virus that ends up killing its host soon runs out of warm bodies to infect (in an idealised world, where local populations stay local and don’t move about too much…). Case in point: the ebola virus. My guess is that these viruses die out with their local population of hosts, and the weaker mutants, which don’t cause immediate death, will survive another day to infect another host.

Update 2: Having skimmed through the paper, it looks like they looked at two different scenarios: one where they allowed pairs viruses to infect cells in culture and compared the historical and recent viruses’ abilities to replicate in competition with each other (indicator of their pathogenicity, don’t know how it works), and another where they treated uninfected cells in culture with entry inhibitors, then infected them (measure of drug-resistance).

Their findings? Recent viruses are less “fit”, and lose out in direct competition with the historical ones. And recent viruses are a little less able to infect cells treated with entry inhibitors.

[Disclaimer: This is super-simplified and over-generalised. I really don’t know anything about viruses, let alone the ins-and-outs of HIV-1. Other factors to take into account include period, method and range of infection, immune response, disease progress and bloodymindedness of humans and drug companies…]

And as is pretty obvious, I’m work-avoiding… Pseudo-science on a blog being easier to write my own stuff.

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Help the aged… Right out of the conference.

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From BBC news: Labour issues apology to heckler

In the post-match interview:

“I’m going to personally apologise to him,” Mr McCartney said. “I’m going to personally meet him if he takes the opportunity.”

(Emphasis mine.) Umm… I don’t know what Ian McCartney is normally like, but I think that was a poor choice of words. It should have been “…if he GIVES ME the opportunity”. And I hope when Mr Wolfgang meets Mr McCartney, he gives that young whippersnapper the good hiding he deserves for his insolence. (Oops. No longer allowed under Nanny-Lab.)

Elsewhere, the curious hamster makes a sound prediction.

danger down under

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From the BBC’s news magazine: Danger Down Under

This brings to mind TP’s continent of XXXX (or FourEcks*), where there are no longer snakes; the slithering reptiles having been eaten by the spiders. And don’t even bother trying to list all the other dangerous species. Not even the sheep are completely harmless…

Och, yet another mirror of Roundworld in the Discworld… 😉

*See The Last Continent.

An experiment in brown

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An experiment in brown


Brown, brown, brown

Originally uploaded by framboise.

Slowly getting back to some semblance of a normal life. Felt alert enough tonight to cook without burning the place down, though how one can achieve that with an electric stove, one can only wonder.

Something other foreign postdocs have noticed (i.e. moaned about during lunch) is the way a lot of the meat here leaks copious amounts of water when fried. While that’s happened to me only twice, I’ve not had that problem since I found a decent source of meat. Whole Foods has a half-decent meat section, where they stock organic beef, some of which has even been hung long enough to develop some flavour. Although the price is considerably more, I’d willingly give up alcohol to have good meat (not that I have to just yet). Same with the chicken. Since finding organic chicken not only at Whole Foods, but also at Ralph’s, my frying pan has been almost spit-free. This isn’t the best-controlled experiment, as I’ve not really explored the non-organic options. But since I eat organic meat for the simple reason that it’s the only way to be sure the meat is hormone- and antibiotic-free here, I’m not exactly going out of my way to buy the regular stuff.

So. The experiment in brown. I don’t know why it is that, surrounded by colour, I could only think to buy some mushrooms to have with my chicken. As for the chicken, easy-peasy:

  1. Heat some oil in a pan over a medium-to-high heat. Place some chicken thighs (or legs) in the oil, skin-side down. Allow the chicken to develop some colour (golden brown is the aim, not charred brown), and turn over. This may take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the heat.
  2. When the chicken is browned all over, turn the heat right down so that the oil is gently bubbling. Get yourself a few cloves of garlic, with skins left on. Smash with the blade of a largish knife and throw into the pan. Stick a cover over the pan and let the chicken cook. Again, depending on size of chicken pieces and heat, this could take anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes. More if your chicken was more closely related to a turkey (embarrassing story from my childhood somewhere there…).
  3. While the chicken is cooking, look through the veg box/fridge to find some inspiration for an accompaniment. If you’re me, realise that you’ve got no colour in the kitchen, and resign yourself to slicing some mushrooms.
  4. Dig out a half-open bottle of Chablis some friends left in your kitchen when they left the country, and taste to check it’s not gone off. Pour out a decent measure and refrain from drinking on an empty stomach.
  5. At the same time, dig out the genuine creme fraiche bought almost 3 weeks ago from a Trader Joe’s and sniff it to check it’s not gone off either. Amazingly, it hasn’t… (There’s something odd about the way milk, yoghurt and cream lasts so much longer in the US. Preservatives? Better storage? Whatever it is, it’s freaking me out…)
  6. By the time you’ve finished rummaging around the kitchen, the chicken will be ready. Add the mushrooms to help soak up some of that lovely chicken fat. Or if you’re conscientious, and fat-conscious, drain the fat out of the pan first. But make sure you’re not removing the “jus”…
  7. Remove the chicken, garlic and mushrooms from the pan, and add the large glass of wine. Let it bubble away on a high heat.
  8. When the wine has “reduced” (read: evaporated. what a waste…) to half its volume, add a huge blob of creme fraiche. Make that three very generous tablespoons. Or more.
  9. While it’s bubbling, realise you forgot to season the sauce, and decide it doesn’t matter anyway. Squeeze a forlorn half of a lemon into the sauce. Actually, make it a quarter unless it’s a very small lemon.
  10. Serve. With any other brown accompaniment you can find. In this case, bread frozen a whole month ago and defrosted in the microwave.
  11. Eat. Feel fulfilled that you’ve survived another session in an alien kitchen.

And because your dishwasher hasn’t received his visa yet, do the dishes… Cos they won’t keep for another 3-4 weeks.

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I know that loo…

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From the BBC’s news mag: A public inconvenience.

My first thought when I saw the photo: I know that loo! How sad is that? It’s the women’s public toilet in Dunbar. Although that is an exemplary toilet, I’m afraid to report that the facilities in nearby Yellowcraigs beach (between North Berwick and Gullane) leave a lot to be desired. They’re the kind you can imagine being kidnapped from, being situated between sand dunes and a dark copse. So when we’re driving through East Lothian, and we’re caught short, we always aim for Dunbar…

Blairgowrie man is world champion

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Here’s a first for Blair(gowrie): one of their local sons is the current world champion.

Of stone skimming.

Yes, you read it right. To be added to the list of top-class sporting events: World Stone Skimming Championships! Held on Easdale Island, on the west coast of Scotland, they take stone skimming seriously enough to have regulation stones.

A reliable source (read: P) informs me that it made the news (i.e. the evening news in Scotland), and gave him a jolt when he recognised the champion stone skimmer as a classmate of his brother’s. (Other trivia you didn’t want to know: the champion’s brother was in P’s year in school, and good at footie. Ach, small town people… They all know each other… I lived in a country with only 3 million people and I hardly knew anyone except my classmates. And I only ever met 2 people in school who went on to fame, don’t know about fortune…)

A bit of research (read: searching the Scotsman’s website) found these two articles. Knock yourselves out (you may need to register):

So, well done, Dougie Isaacs!

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It’s never dreich in LA

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The BBC promotes an interesting book in today’s Magazine: The Meaning of Tingo (author’s website here). His latest blog entry would bring a wee smile to the face of most Scots:

… Scottish weather words I found, most of them, unsurprisingly, to do with rain. Dreich, ‘a miserably wet day’; plowtery, meaning ‘showery’; and drookit, ‘soaked to the skin’.

Most of the Scottish words I know are related to the weather, closely followed by words about drink or being drunk… Now what does that say about me, or the state of Scotland? (Not 100% sure, not being a true Scot, but plowtery may be pronounced “ploootery”, and drookit as “dreekit”. Don’t quote me on that…)

The book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com and .co.uk… I think it qualifies under my new strict guidelines for buying books. i.e. I have to want to ship it back to the UK when I’m done here. That’s probably been the hardest thing to resist over here, especially since I live very close to a good secondhand bookshop.

Speaking of bookshops, tucked between many trendy restaurants in Westwood is a murder/mystery/crime specialist bookshop. I wandered in last week out of curiosity, as I’m not a huge fan of crime novels. Not recognising any works or authors on the tables, I went off in search for Ian Rankin’s books. Different covers. For some reason, publishers think that British and American readers have different preferences for cover art. Same thing with Terry Pratchett’s novels; they lack both Kirby’s and Kidby’s paintings.

Edit: Just thought to check if the bookshop has a website. Turns out they have a blog. They sure arrange a lot of signings.