Monthly Archives: March 2018

Medicines for people living with HIV have improved greatly since they were invented, and now people can have the HIV virus be virtually undetectable in their body without many side effects. However, people with HIV still have to take their antiretroviral medication every day. A current  goal is for people is to be in remission from HIV without the need for any medication. However, as of now, as soon as people stop taking their medication, the levels of HIV in their blood increase drastically. To work toward the goal of stopping medication altogether, clinical trials have used short-term analytical treatment interruption (i.e. stopping the medication for short periods of time) to assess how effective certain strategies are in keeping the levels of HIV in the body very low or even undetectable without treatment. This treatment interruption strategy has been considered safe enough to use in trials, but researchers aren’t entirely…

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Many marine organisms have a planktonic form. This means that they drift in the ocean for part of their life until they can find something suitable to attach to and grow. A common example of an animal like this would be a mussel or a barnacle. However, it’s a real headache when they land on human-made structures that are designed to let water through or be moved regularly, such as nets or fishing lines. One mussel is no problem, but colonies can easily weigh nets down, making them hard to reel in. Enough animals on the nets can even cause them to break or clog, leading to high replacement and cleaning costs. The accumulation of organisms on man-made structures in the water, from nets to pipes to cruise liners, is called “fouling.”   A team of researchers saw an opportunity in this “foul” problem – they could encourage these organisms…

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Tyrannosaurus rex needs no introduction. It is the go-to dinosaur for all ages that has been popular since its description in 1905. Partly due to its popularity, scientists have researched and debated much of its life history. One of the more popular debates is centered around what T. rex ate and whether it was a carnivore or a scavenger. While there are many different ideas surrounding what the dinosaur may or may not have eaten, one comparison had not been drawn between Tyrannosaurus and some modern animals – were bones a part of its diet on purpose? In order to answer this question, its jaw and skull anatomy had to be biomechanically modeled to observe how well its musculature, bite force, and tooth structure would have withstood biting down on bone. Modern reptiles will swallow bones whole rather than break them; crushing bones for food is generally thought of as…

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by Fernando Favoretti Vital do PradoBlue Marble Space Young Scientist Program For over a century we haved based most of our energy production on the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, increasing the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) which levels today, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates, are higher than at any point in at least the past 800,000 years. The average temperature at the surface of the Earth depends on a balance between incoming energy from the Sun and the energy that bounces back into space. CO2 absorbs heat radiating from the surface and re-emits some of this back to Earth, causing additional heating of the planet. Some scientists are now talking about the need for more radical actions to stop potential catastrophes that could harm human civilization. These actions are known as geoengineering. Geoengineering is controversial and not currently being performed as…

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