Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have found a way to reactivate T-cell production in adults with HIV. T-cells are part of your immune system. They float around gobbling up bad guys that cause infections. People with HIV have a hard time building up their T-cell count after serious infections and this leads to a downhill spiral of constant infections.

T-cells are produced by the thymus gland, but when we reach adulthood, the thymus doesn’t work so well any more. This is why people with embattled immune systems have a hard time rebuilding their T-cell count. The thymus is already slowly pumping out new T-cells (if any) and toss in a disease that actively attacks T-cells and you got real problems.

The researchers at UCSF have been involved in a two year study that shows that the thymus can be stimulated to produce more T-cells with the treatment of growth hormone (GH). HIV patients continued with their usual HIV therapy, but also received GH in the first year of the study. These people showed a marked increase in thymus size and doubled the number of newly made T-cells.

There is still much to be done, but the initial results are very promising. Researchers still don’t know the full effects of GH on the human immune system. GH can also have several side effects that haven’t been fully categorized yet. And the researchers don’t know if the new T-cells produced by GH are actually “good” T-cells. But still, a larger study conducted by the AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) has had similar results. It’s not a cure, but it does mean a longer, healthier life for those with HIV.

There’s a total lunar eclipse tonight (not that I’ll get to see it because of our craptacular weather). If the weather is clear in your area, you should check it out. It will be the last total lunar eclipse until December 2010.

A lunar eclipse only happens with a full moon and the moon passes through some portion of the earth’s shadow. The earth’s shadow gives the moon a red color due to atmosphere, but if you catch the eclipse at the beginning, the moon can sometimes look turquoise.

Enjoy!

I’m always amazed when scientists uncover a new dinosaur, especially an elephant sized dino. A team in Chicago discovered two very large meatosaurs that roamed around the ancient African landscape.

The first one is a member of the Eorarcharia dinops and was a fierce predator. Eorarcharia is a forerunner to Carcharodontosaurus who was just as bad-ass as T-rex. This new species had large blade-like teeth for tearing its prey to shreds (to shreds you say). The other new species is called Kryptop palaios and had fairly small teeth. This guy was probably a carrion eater. It’s even possible that Kryptop followed around Eorarcharia since they were found near each other at the dig.

These two new species give scientist an idea of how dinosaurs evolved as the African continent split from South America. It also shows the progression of smaller dinosaurs to humongo dinosaurs that suggest a steady evolutionary trend for larger predators.

I smell a new Jurassic Park movie.

I don’t think I realized what I was getting into when I started yoga teacher training. I thought I’d just learn proper pose alignment, how to say the sanskrit name of the pose and how to teach that to others. This is probably all I would have learned if I had taken the easy fast track route, but it is in my nature to make things more difficult for myself. Yeah, I know I learn more this way.

This weekend of teacher training was filled with so many “Aha” moments. I’m learning a lot about anatomy and this weekend I learned a lot about our hips and pelvic bones. Human anatomy is not new to me. I had to take anatomy and physiology in under-grad. At the time, I was focused on just memorizing the structures. I never really thought about why our bones and muscles are shaped and placed in specific ways, which is stupid.

For example, raise your hand if you tuck your tail bone under while standing (or sitting). Yeah, we all do it. When we tuck our tail bones, we shrink the holes formed by our sacrum and pubic bones where the sciatic nerve passes. We put pressure on the nerve and surrounding blood vessels. No wonder 90% of Americans have lower back pain.

Plus, after sitting on the floor practically all weekend, sitting in a real chair hurts. I’m going to have to retrain my brain about a lot things.

Head lice are disgusting parasites that we have never been able to eradicate. We all remember the head lice checks in elementary school. They’ve been following us around for centuries. Now, mummified head lice are helping us to understand ancient migrations.

Researches were able to extract DNA from lice found on two pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies (about 1,000 years old). The DNA allowed researchers to establish that the lice have been riding along on human hosts for as early as 15,000 years ago. The DNA matches that of the most common type of louse and is believed to have traveled all the way from Africa.

This lets Columbus of the hook. Typhus, carried by head lice, is one of the many diseases previously thought to have been introduced by the Europeans. Though we can still thank Columbus for the measles.

Today is Chris’ Birthday! Everyone needs to go to his blog and bug him today. Happy Birthday Chris!!

I was ready for Super Tuesday. I had my outfit planned and I was ready to get out and vote! Then Edwards dropped out. Now what!? I have no idea who to vote for tomorrow. None. Nada. No clue.

Both are worthy and historic candidates. I will admit to feeling a little giddy at the prospect of having a woman president. And I do feel slightly obligated as a woman to vote for a woman (girls gotta stick together). But when it comes to making a decision, it shouldn’t be about race or gender. It should be about the issues and the policies.

And I still have no idea who I’m voting for tomorrow. I could still vote for Edwards, but I feel like that’s throwing my vote away. Chris said that I could vote for whomever he wasn’t vote for and that way our votes would cancel each other out. That’s not only throwing away my vote, but his vote too. I’m thinking of playing the eenie-meanie-minie-moe game or flipping a coin.

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the US entry into the space race. Explorer 1, the first satellite, was successfully launched into orbit on January 31 1958. The Explorer satellite was launched atop a Juniper C rocket and carried a cosmic ray detector to measure radiation levels in orbit.

The cosmic ray detector, provided by Dr. James Van Allen, showed much lower radiation levels then expected. Dr. Van Allen theorized that the detector was saturated by very strong radiation from a belt of charged particles. A second satellite launch two months later revealed this to be true. This charged belt of particles trapped in space by the Earth’s magnetic field became known as the Van Allen Belts.

Explorer 1 only transmitted for a few months. Its last transmission was May 23 1958. It finally burned up in the Earths atmosphere in March 1970. It’s hard to believe that 50 years ago people were gathered around their TV sets to anxiously watch the launch of Explorer 1, a lowly satellite. Explorer 1 was the beginning of our love affair with space. In those days you truly loved NASA. Sigh. When was the last time you were excited about watching a space launch?