Monthly Archives: April 2018

As the medications for HIV have gotten more effective, people are living longer with HIV. However, as people living with HIV get older, they are more likely to also develop different problems or diseases, two of which include the viral infection Hepatitis C and Alcohol Use Disorder (alcoholism).  The interaction between these two different diseases and HIV, and how that affects the brain is not fully understood yet, as not many studies have monitored the condition of the HIV-infected patients over time. Intrigued by this, Natalie Zahr, a researcher from Stanford University carried out a literature review, by looking at all the recent relevant research published about a specific topic,  to try and establish any patterns or derive conclusions from among them. The specific topic that Dr. Zahr looked at was on the function or structure of the brain in people who have both HIV and either alcoholism or Hepatitis…

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In the aquaculture industry, one of the most important and most costly parts of raising fish, especially carnivorous fish, is providing them with the ideal feed for growth and health. Fish meal, which is essentially ground up smaller fish, is the perfect protein source for fish growth because it contains sufficient amounts of all the essential amino acids (proteins the body can’t make), vitamins, and minerals. However, fish meal is often more expensive than the alternatives, such as plant-based proteins. The price of fish meal can also be highly variable, especially during times like El Niño when anchovies, one of the main fish used to make fish meal, are less available. While plant-based proteins are less-expensive, carnivorous fish like salmon are not well-equipped to digest plant products due to their short intestine. Their intestine is comprised of just two short sections, the mid intestine and the distal (the furthest end)…

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Graffiti on the Berlin Wall may have become a symbol of freedom, but many heritage structures around the world are in grave danger of being scarred for eternity by a can of spray paint. From professions of love and profanity to messages of peace and protest, stone monuments around the world have seen it all. Efforts to make our monuments pristine again, however, have only seen moderate success. Visually removing all traces of graffiti is not enough; with increasingly stronger paints available in the market, conservators (the people responsible for preserving our treasured works of art and monuments) have to work extra hard to prevent the chemicals in strong paints from seeping into fissures in the stone and damaging them in the long run. This also means that powerful chemicals cannot be used to clean away the graffiti, either. Lasers, with their high precision and minimal chemical impact, have emerged…

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One of the first steps of any recipe is to wash your produce. In today’s global food system, fruits and vegetables make a lot of stops before reaching your plate, so you can never be too careful. In fact, contamination of produce by bacteria like Salmonella is a major public health concern. But, that’s not all! Diarrheal disease caused by food poisoning could have many possible causes, but one of the most common is human norovirus. Norovirus is the causative agent behind what people call a “stomach bug,” “stomach flu,” or simply “that thing that’s going around.” Norovirus, however, is neither a bug nor the flu. It is a highly infective virus all on its own that can spread from person to person by the fecal-oral route and requires only 18 virus particles to start an infection. And the thing just won’t die! It survives freezing and up to 200…

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If you live in a developed country and eat seafood, there’s a very good chance that the fish on your plate was caught by a commercial fishing boat. You may know whether your tuna comes from the Pacific or the Atlantic, but if pressed for details on where exactly that tuna fishery operates, your best guess might be, “somewhere in the ocean?” Don’t feel bad—your answer perfectly sums up the challenge of identifying just how much fishing is happening, and where. The ocean is a vast frontier, and patrolling every corner of it is an impossible undertaking. Unlike the fields and feedlots of industrialized agriculture, the boundaries of fisheries are dynamic, mobile, and less-clearly defined. Despite the importance of fisheries for human food security, we know surprisingly little about how much of the ocean they cover, or just how much fishing they’re doing—until now. Eyes on the seas In a…

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