Science is Awesome
While procrastinating I've been catching up on my RSS feeds and figured I'd round up a collection of awesome sciencey happenings of the past few months.
Blogging the Voyage of the Beagle: As my housemate keeps reminding me, 2009 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of the Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. In celebration of that, Darwin's Beagle journal is being blogged, complete with images and geocaching. The latest entry is their arrival at the Falkland Islands, March 1, 1833, to discover with some surprise that England had repossessed them from the Buenos Aires government. Current population: 1.
Where is M13? An interactive 3D model of the night sky. Free and downloadable.
The results of the first successful HIV Vaccine trial have been released. The group administered the vaccine showed 30% fewer HIV cases compared to the group who received a placebo vaccination. Specifically, there were 51 HIV cases out of 8200 people vaccinated versus 74 out of 8200 not vaccinated. While the difference is small, it is large enough to be statistically significant, and incredibly promising.
The vaccine consists of two different vaccines that are individually ineffective but in combination trigger an immune response in the body. Neither contain the HIV virus itself, but instead use sections of the protein that coats the HIV virus to help the body identify it. HIV itself constantly mutates, which is what prevents our immune systems from recognizing it, thus making a vaccine difficult to create.
However, this trial is currently only targeting the Thai strain of the virus which may not directly translate to providing a vaccine for other strains. But further investigation into how this particular combination reduced risk of infection will increase our understanding of the virus and that in itself is beneficial.
More information about the programs working to develop a HIV vaccine can be found at the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.
[Edit: Unfortunately, it now looks like the statistical significance of the results has been called into question. From what I can tell, not all the participants took the full complement of injections which skewed the results into statistical significance when they were included.
"[Colonel Nelson] Michael suggested that other researchers and the media alike have disproportionately interpreted the purpose of the study. He emphasized that the trial was meant to test a 'proof of concept,' that the unlikely combination of two vaccines would have a preventative effect at all.
The trial was not meant to provide a vaccine for complete immunity against HIV or to suggest a precise administration regimen."
Hopefully the results of the study still provide useful, but still, it's kinda disheartening. Note to self: be more thorough with my research next time.]
Science: So What? So Everything. is a program currently being run by the UK government to promote science awareness to the general public. It's basically a centralised resource of bite sized articles on science current affairs, everyday science, its impact on society, science events and interviews. Cool! Does anyone know if the Australian government has anything similar?
In other good news, the Australian Vaccination Network is being formally investigated by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission for breaches of the Public Health Act of 1993. The AVN, despite their innocuous sounding name are responsible for such gems as "Swine flu is a synthetic virus manufactured by a secret illuminati for the purposes of mass genocide" and also holding Health Seminars and distributing newsletters lecturing parents on how vaccines are harmful to their children. More information on their activities can be found on the Vaccination Awareness and Information Service.
A good summary of rebuttals to the myths and misinformation generally spread by anti-vaxers can be found at AntiAntiVax.
For a laugh: My psychic is never wrong!
Although this is old hat now, I <3 NASA for their LCROSS twitter feed:
"And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?"
The Bad Astronomer (Phil Plait) as a great article on why the LCROSS didn't destroy the moon. Hehe.
See, Science = Awesome!
Blogging the Voyage of the Beagle: As my housemate keeps reminding me, 2009 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of the Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. In celebration of that, Darwin's Beagle journal is being blogged, complete with images and geocaching. The latest entry is their arrival at the Falkland Islands, March 1, 1833, to discover with some surprise that England had repossessed them from the Buenos Aires government. Current population: 1.
Where is M13? An interactive 3D model of the night sky. Free and downloadable.
The results of the first successful HIV Vaccine trial have been released. The group administered the vaccine showed 30% fewer HIV cases compared to the group who received a placebo vaccination. Specifically, there were 51 HIV cases out of 8200 people vaccinated versus 74 out of 8200 not vaccinated. While the difference is small, it is large enough to be statistically significant, and incredibly promising.
The vaccine consists of two different vaccines that are individually ineffective but in combination trigger an immune response in the body. Neither contain the HIV virus itself, but instead use sections of the protein that coats the HIV virus to help the body identify it. HIV itself constantly mutates, which is what prevents our immune systems from recognizing it, thus making a vaccine difficult to create.
However, this trial is currently only targeting the Thai strain of the virus which may not directly translate to providing a vaccine for other strains. But further investigation into how this particular combination reduced risk of infection will increase our understanding of the virus and that in itself is beneficial.
More information about the programs working to develop a HIV vaccine can be found at the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.
[Edit: Unfortunately, it now looks like the statistical significance of the results has been called into question. From what I can tell, not all the participants took the full complement of injections which skewed the results into statistical significance when they were included.
"[Colonel Nelson] Michael suggested that other researchers and the media alike have disproportionately interpreted the purpose of the study. He emphasized that the trial was meant to test a 'proof of concept,' that the unlikely combination of two vaccines would have a preventative effect at all.
The trial was not meant to provide a vaccine for complete immunity against HIV or to suggest a precise administration regimen."
Hopefully the results of the study still provide useful, but still, it's kinda disheartening. Note to self: be more thorough with my research next time.]
Science: So What? So Everything. is a program currently being run by the UK government to promote science awareness to the general public. It's basically a centralised resource of bite sized articles on science current affairs, everyday science, its impact on society, science events and interviews. Cool! Does anyone know if the Australian government has anything similar?
In other good news, the Australian Vaccination Network is being formally investigated by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission for breaches of the Public Health Act of 1993. The AVN, despite their innocuous sounding name are responsible for such gems as "Swine flu is a synthetic virus manufactured by a secret illuminati for the purposes of mass genocide" and also holding Health Seminars and distributing newsletters lecturing parents on how vaccines are harmful to their children. More information on their activities can be found on the Vaccination Awareness and Information Service.
A good summary of rebuttals to the myths and misinformation generally spread by anti-vaxers can be found at AntiAntiVax.
For a laugh: My psychic is never wrong!
Although this is old hat now, I <3 NASA for their LCROSS twitter feed:
"And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?"
The Bad Astronomer (Phil Plait) as a great article on why the LCROSS didn't destroy the moon. Hehe.
See, Science = Awesome!