So there’s this fellow—an inquisitive sort, even if not particularly bright—whom one day is asked by his ogress of a wife to drive to the store to buy a ham. Obediently, he does so, finds an impressive specimen of meat at the store, returns home and, grinning widely, places it proudly on the kitchen table [...]

Australia is debating whether or not to list koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) as a threatened or endangered species, and one of the ideas for saving them is to build tunnels to help the marsupials cross under roads without being killed by cars and trucks. We’re used to thinking about koalas living in trees, but they spend [...]

The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.  On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point.  But, they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice [...]

A few weeks ago, I was graced with an honorary doctorate in social media from Social Media University, Global. My dissertation has been wonderfully received; I have been given high accolades and several once closed opportunities have opened. I have been humbled by the response and am sincerely grateful that people have been touched by [...]

30 minutes, 70 fates. You don’t know it, but as I write this piece, there is some serious procrastination going on. My attention span is weak and sidetracked constantly by a variety of diversions, and if you must know, it’s taken me close to half an hour to write these first two sentences. Still, one [...]

The FDA has just announced approval for the OraQuick In-Home HIV test, by OraSure Technologies. That’s great news on some fronts, but the test raises new questions, as well. As I’ve just been catching up on my vacation reading with Marya Zilberberg’s helpful new book, “Between the Lines,” the first thing that caught my eye [...]

Evidence for the long-term health benefits of circumcision for newborn boys has been mounting for years. Today the influential group the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) declared that the procedure is, indeed, beneficial—and that it should be covered by public and private health insurance plans. The recommendation was published online August 27 in Pediatrics. Previously [...]

Condom use, earlier treatment and increased education have gone a long way to reducing HIV spread in the U.S. Nonetheless, some 4,000 inhabitants of New York City still became infected with HIV in 2009. Injection drug users make up a small portion of the new infections (just over 4 percent in NYC, and about 9 percent [...]

Thumbi Ndung’u left Kenya 1995 to study medicine at Harvard. He later returned to Africa on a mission to exploit HIV’s vulnerabilities. Now the head of the HIV Pathogenesis Program at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, Ndung’u spoke with Scientific American contributor Brendan Borrell about a research breakthrough early in his career that [...]

First there were glow-in-the-dark fish, then rats, rabbits, insects, even pigs. And, now, researchers have inserted the jellyfish genes that make fluorescent proteins into Felis catus, or the common household cat. The goal was just to make sure that the researchers could successfully insert novel genes into the cats. Past efforts at cloning and injecting [...]

Wednesday marks the 22nd annual World AIDS Day. In the past year several scientific advances have helped rekindle convictions that progress is being made against the spread of HIV and AIDS. Last week researchers presented findings in The New England Journal of Medicine that prophylactic antiretrovirals—along with counseling and other prevention services—reduced HIV infection rates [...]

There is no question that HIV is an ugly virus in terms of human health. Each year, it infects some 2.7 million additional people and leads to some two million deaths from AIDS. But a new album manages to locate some sonic beauty deep in its genome. Sounds of HIV (Azica Records) by composer Alexandra [...]

Babies born to mothers with HIV have a much smaller risk of getting the virus themselves if medical personnel administer preventive drugs, such as nevirapine, at birth to the moms and their newborns. Nevertheless, a small percentage of those infants will end up getting the disease anyway. And without treatment, some 62 percent of HIV-positive [...]

A vaginal microbicide can cut HIV infection rates by 39 percent in women, researchers announced Monday. And female study participants who inserted the gel as directed reduced their chances of contracting HIV by more than half (54 percent). The news is a stunning, positive development— especially for women at risk for sexual transmission—in a field [...]

MIAMI—In three months hundreds of thousands of soccer fans are expected to descend on nine South African cities for the 2010 World Cup. But for so many visitors going to a country where more than 10 percent of the population is estimated to have HIV/AIDS, many public health experts are worried that the event will [...]

People with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) will no longer be prohibited from visiting or immigrating to the U.S., the White House announced Friday. An entry ban, which went into effect 22 years ago when national fears over AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) had reached a fevered pitch, prevented those with HIV from entering the [...]

World AIDS Day is approaching on December 1. As I was looking up more about World AIDS Day and awareness and testing guidelines/suggestions, I discovered there are several other similar days for awareness including National HIV Testing Day (NHTD), June 27, an annual observance to promote HIV testing. There are also days set aside for [...]