Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Herra Tohtori on October 22, 2007, 01:45:20 am
-
With the latest advances in treatment, doctors have discovered that they can successfully neutralise the HIV virus. The so-called ‘combination therapy’ prevents the HIV virus from mutating and spreading, allowing patients to rebuild their immune system to the same levels as the rest of the population.
To date, it represents the most significant treatment for patients suffering from HIV.
Professor Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen, together with other members of the research group EuroSIDA, have conducted a study, which demonstrates that the immune system of all HIV-infected patients can be restored and normalised. The only stipulation is that patients begin and continue to follow their course of treatment.
HIV attacks the body’s ability to counteract viruses
Viruses are small organisms that have no independent metabolism. Consequently, when they enter the body they attack living cells and adopt their metabolism. The influenza virus occupies cells in the nose, throat and lungs; the mumps attaches itself to the salivary glands of the ear; while the Polio virus plays on the intestinal tract, blood and salivary glands. In all these instances, our immune system attacks and eliminates the invading virus.
HIV is so deadly because the virus attaches itself to a crucial part of the immune system itself: to the so-called CD4+T lymphocytes, which are white blood corpuscles that help the immune system to fight infections. The Hi-virus forms and invades new CD4+T-lymphocytes. Slowly but surely, the number of healthy CD4+T lymphocytes in the blood fall, while HIV relentlessly weakens the body’s ability to defend itself from infection. Finally, the immune system erodes to such an extent that the infected patient is diagnosed with AIDS. The Hi-virus mutates constantly as it forms and this is why, scientists face a constant battle to find a cure or a vaccine.
Combination therapy knocks out HIV
Combination therapy prevents the virus from forming and mutating in human beings. When the virus is halted in its progress, the number of healthy CD4+T cells begins to rise and patients, who would otherwise die from HIV, can now survive. The immune system is rejuvenated and is apparently able to normalise itself, providing that the combination therapy is maintained. The moment the immune system begins to improve, the HIV-infected patient can no longer be said to be suffering from an HIV infection or disease, already declining in strength.
Findings from the study are published in the medical journal The Lancet - Vol. 370, Issue 9585, 4 August 2007, Pages 407-413
:eek2:
Okay, this is kick-ass news if the statements are as accurate as they are bold. In fact I'd say it's the next biggest thing to come from Copenhagen since the works of Niels Bohr.
I just wonder how prohibitively expensive the treatment is - ie. will it do any good at all for all those poor buggers living and dying in Sub-Saharan Africa? Doesn't say in the article... The fact that it's "combination therapy" suggests that multiple medications need to be used, though. And historically HIV medications have been rather expensive.
Original news (same text) in the University of Copenhagen pages found here (http://www.ku.dk/english/news/hiv_eurosida.htm).
-
its not a cure but its getting there. as for it being expinsive, well, the reason health care sucks is because no ones really willing to pay for it.
im curious if by restoring the immune system, keeping it alive with the virus still in the system, if it would eventually find a way to create antibodies which are capable of killing the virus.
-
Well if it keeps the HI virus from mutating (one of the reasons why the immune system has trouble fighting over it IIRC) and from invading new lymfosytes, then I'd think that with some time, the amount of infected lymfosytes will be very small in the system. I dunno how the healthy lymfosytes try to deal with infected lymfosytes, though. It's possible that they would could eventually be purged from the system - and contrary to popular belief, human immunity system can at least sometimes deal with minor HIV infection as far as I know, but I'm not completely sure about that one though. But when it gets a good hold in the immunity system, it becomes practically impossible for body to fight on it's own, because the body can't develope antibodies for fastly mutating virus, plus it takes over the cells that should be producing the antibodies in the first place.
Also, it's pretty much semantics whether you wanna talk about a cure or a treatment... Cure will take away the fundamental reason for the disease (in this case, the HI-virus); but a treatment that negates the symptoms of the disease (in this case, immunodeficiency) is as good as a cure IMHO... except for being continuous and thus possibly more expensive, that is.
One interesting thing is that a part of the population is innately immune to the HI-virus due to some protein structure on their cell walls or something that simply prevents the HI-virus from entering the cell. It's hypothized that this mutation became beneficial during the medieval epidemics (particular disease is unknown but smallpox is the strongest candidate for this dubious honor) and has since remained in the population, to a varying degree; the effect of this is that about 10% of people of European descent is immune to HI-virus, and the percentage varies from different countries/areas... here in Finland the percentage of CCR5-delta-32 allel in the population is about 16%, while in Sardinia it's close to 4%.
From an extremely cynical point of view, it might be beneficial in the long run to just let the evolution do it's job, because eventually the immunity to HI-virus will become beneficial and thus spread in the population, eventually stopping the virus... The problem with HIV infection is that it sadly doesn't prevent the infected from spreading their HIV-vulnerable genes (along with the virus) before they keel over. Thus the immunity to HI-virus isn't an immediate benefit for a specimen and thus it'll take a lot of time for it to become more common in the population, and by the time it gets more popular, the virus may have mutated in turn to circumvent the immunity mutation developed in humans.
Perhaps it should be determined which epidemy it was that originally caused the CCR5-delta-32 mutation to become beneficial, and spread that to HIV-plagued areas. A couple global smallpox epidemies should do the trick, and we would also get rid of overpopulation, the energy consumption would be much lesser and the available resources could be shared by few, effectively raising the standard of living almost globally. :)
...okay, that smilie face in that context is a bit twisted. :nervous:
-
Twisted?
I'd say it's about damn time for some natural selection. He have too many twits spreading thir genes arounf this planet anyway! ;7
-
Damn right. It's time someone had the balls to stand up and say "this world can't support everyone!".
Herra, go get your power drill. I'll start getting poor people to line up.
-
Ahhhh the rising generation: "Look at me!!! I'm gonna drink my bottled spring water, have sex with whoever I want with no consequences! I'm gonna live forever!"
-
Ahhhh the rising generation: "Look at me!!! I'm gonna drink my bottled spring water, have sex with whoever I want with no consequences! I'm gonna live forever!"
well, number 1 is silly, but numbers 2 and 3 are fine. just wear a rubber and it'll be all good.
-
The complete inhuman bastard in me worries this might lead to an exponential increase in the spread of HIV.
-
Ah, this explains that there exist people who have been diagnosed HIV positive but they never get the AIDS. Was wondering that when I was surfing through the net. And ahem, what does the relatively high immunity against AIDS tell about us Finns?
Hey Doc, since you seem to know something about AIDS, what is you take on the 1980s publication by some scientist (whose name I conveniently forgot since it is not really related to Optics) who claimed that there was a worrifying correlation between the smallpox vaccinations (I'm not sure about that vaccination either) and the AIDS cases. The thing that struck me as odd that there was both local and temporal correlation between vaccinations and AIDS outbreaks? Has this stuff been researched after that? I recall this caused some kind of controversy, but I'm not sure what was the outcome?
What does that Doc mean? Is it the real Doc or a Ph.D. Doc? I suspect the latter but...
Mika
EDIT: Spelling
-
Ah, this explains that there exist people who have been diagnosed HIV positive but they never get the AIDS. Was wondering that when I was surfing through the net. And ahem, what does the relatively high immunity against AIDS tell about us Finns?
It tells that the mutation possibly originated amongst the Finnish population, or became more spread in the population because Northern Europe was hit relatively badly and longer than the rest of Europe by all those epidemics, including smallpox.
Hey Doc, since you seem to know something about AIDS, what is you take on the 1980s publication by some scientist (whose name I conveniently forgot since it is not really related to Optics) who claimed that there was a worrifying correlation between the smallpox vaccinations (I'm not sure about that vaccination either) and the AIDS cases. The thing that struck me as odd that there was both local and temporal correlation between vaccinations and AIDS outbreaks? Has this stuff been researched after that? I recall this caused some kind of controversy, but I'm not sure what was the outcome?
I have no idea to be honest. I doubt that there would be any actual correlation, except for the fact that perhaps the latest areas vaccinated against smallpox were the same areas where HIV first became common, but as I said I have no information about this correlation or research on it.
What does that Doc mean? Is it the real Doc or a Ph.D. Doc? I suspect the latter but...
It doesn't actually mean anything, I'm a teekkari [Finnish for student of technology] in reality... It's just a nick and it comes from Kummeli (ya know, Herra Tohtori ja älykääpiöt).
..come on, I had to invent some nick when I was in lukio and spent most of the skip lessons and some of the breaks on the computer class if it was free, writing in www.tiede.fi/keskustelut... and it kinda stuck, become part of my internets persona and now I wouldn't likely. :lol:
To make the latter part of this message less nonsensical for non-finnish forum members, should it be of any interest, my nick actually means "Mr. Doctor" and it comes from a Finnish sketch tv-show called Kummeli, which used to have a character called Herra Tohtori, who was usually accompanied by intellectually challenged midgets who usually offered him peanuts.
Herra Tohtori and intellectually challenged midgets can be seen in this youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VmbzpXh_rc), after the part where the Chief of Directing, Jaakko Parantainen, goes superman. Doesn't really make any sense if you don't understand the language and all the underlying puns, and even if you do it's still completely idiotic but oh so funny... for a while. :p
-
Curing diseases is all well and good and stuff, but I mean, the way the world works some people are supposed to die from diseases, thats why they are there. It's the earth's own way of keeping the population under control. I can sympathize with people who have lost loved ones to various diseases/disorders/syndromes, I have lost some too, but the fact is, if we cure disease, the world won't be able to support us anymore and we'll all die.
-
the world cant support a technologically rich population where everyone has a computer, a car, air conditioning, heating, plumbing,ect. the world dont have that many resources. im sure the earth could support more people if we all live like the amish. you cant kill the poor people because theyre the ones who put all that **** together. what we should do is admit people at random to death camps. the people being random it should scale down our society without screwing too much of that up. or we could just use nukes
-
SOYLENT GREEN
-
Curing diseases is all well and good and stuff, but I mean, the way the world works some people are supposed to die from diseases, thats why they are there. It's the earth's own way of keeping the population under control. I can sympathize with people who have lost loved ones to various diseases/disorders/syndromes, I have lost some too, but the fact is, if we cure disease, the world won't be able to support us anymore and we'll all die.
Curing all diseases if that were ever to happen would imply a highly advanced society with significant portions of that society devoted to medical research and technology. While all of those people are busy researching and getting their education they aren't spending allot of time fraternizing with the opposite sex and therefore they aren't making babies or when they are they aren't making very many of them.
Most of the countries with the highest possible living standards are also the ones with the smallest birth rates. Long term...if more countries had the same birth rate the net effect is ultimately going to be fewer people. Depending on how this balances out it could be a good thing. Populations have been booming since the two World Wars but they may turn around and fewer people consuming resources at a reduced rate may have a positive effect. Hard to say without numbers and seeing into the future...just thoughts.
-
Yeah, but nukes have a bad habit of doing a lot of collateral damage. If the purpose really were to try and get rid of, say, 70% of human population, a nice human-exclusive pandemia would likely be the best choice, assuming that practically slaughtering off most of the people would actually be ethically acceptable - everyone can form their own opinion on that can of worms. Of course, the problem with that is automatically that the poorest people end up dying the most because they don't have the resources to try and avoid the infection.
Obviously the best way would be to decrease population by natural removal. Enforcing one child global policy would perhaps be the single best overall option, aside from the disfigured age structure of the population (young generation ends up as half the size of the previous one), but the problem there would be enforcing such policy on all the people whose well-being is measured in amount of children they can produce to take care of them in their old age.
What comes to question of whether or not illnesses should be treated or not, it's basically a choice between suffering of a specimen and suffering of species. Treat the illness on one person, and you risk making the disease resistant to treatment, plus you increase the population by reducing the natural removal... It's a difficult problem, and I guess there is no right answer - from different ethical points of view, the answer is different.
The most disturbing thing about population growth should be clear to anyone who has taken a look at small rodents' population fluctuations. The population usually grows and grows to some point, until it collapses. Humans are not that different - we have our ecological locker that can support us to some extent and we may be able to stretch the limits of that support, but eventually if the growth isn't limited by other way... the population collapses due to lack of resources, which will first cause widespread migration periods... hordes of Mongol invaders will be at Europe's back door sooner than later - again. Americas, Australia and GB will probably be better off than Eurasia and Africa, but there'll be internal migration there as well... then the Yellowstone super volcano will erupt and cover the whole continent ona several inches of soot. After that, that pesky Canary island's west side will collapse to Atlantic ocean and cause a mega-super-tsunami which destroys the most of the eastern coast of Americas. Then, the part of California which happens to be on the Pacific plate will sink into the sea. Antarctica will have melted by now, though, so there's not much to sink at this moment anyway, so it'll just be viewed as "good riddance" as it'll finally smother all those bush fires going on in the ultimately dry climate down there. Good point will be the fact that Antarctica can finally be inhabited - the Finnish will have moved there to the remnants of all those Nazi bases hidden in the bottom of the ice aside with the ancient Predator-Alien temple, where they'll invoke the slumbering beasts and then fight them to standstill like always. At this point, though, there are no more national states, though, since the states will lose their legitimacy when they lose their law enforcement power and people will go back to living in small, xenophobic communities that fight for territory. And don't even ask what happens to all those ***** nukes lying around the world in missile silos, they'll probably be used at some new years' celebrations, not that anyone will have much of a reason to celebrate at this point, nor they have much clue what year it actually is, since all the different calendars will have mixed up by now and probably people start using years from the coronation of the local king. Not that it matters for most people anyway since they can't read, write or do much else than try and stay alive as best as they can until they die at the age of 25 at the hands of mutated killer Kiwi.
After a lot of miserable existence, the humanity will finally rebound and stabilize at estimated <1 billion, and the history will tell if the idiots still fall for the idea of national states and other stuff. Probably.
The good thing is that the humanity will lose it's power to goof up with the ecosystem for decades or even centuries, and wolves and bears and other beasts of the forest will have a lot better time in the lush forests of Antarctica.
...ummmkay, it seems my future prediction got a little out of hand. Feel free to ignore that little bit flow of consciousness from my part... :p
EDIT: Oh, and forgot to say that there'll be a whole horde of new and old religious zealots that will demand the humble servitude for the galactic overlord Xenu, Flying Spaghetti Monster and probably there'll even be a religion based on Silmarils, Valar and other actually good stuff, for who the hell will be able to tell parts of Silmarillion from the Bible if they have no previous knowledge of either...?
-
Har. You're assuming that we don't quit being n00bs and start utilizing the cheapest, most effecive, most clean (in the long run) form of power. Nuclear. And that we don't start actually making the most of our available farmland by turning them into greenhouses etc.
-
Assuming you mean fusion power - doesn't really matter, because at some point the food and, even more importantly fresh water will become more of a hindrance than energy. Energy is only needed by society; population can go on if they have food, water and shelter. Which they will be lacking when the population grows enough, regardless of how much energy you can give them...
Fission power doesn't really cut it. It would be a good choice at the moment as opposed to burnign coal and oil, but it won't last remarkably long and thus should only be used until economically feasible fusion reactor becomes widely available. That might or might not happen during the next few decades, and it really should. If it doesn't, there really is no possible way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the current energy output levels.
But anyway...
"Captain, we're veering off the course! Deviation projection - 67 degree change of topic during next three messages! This hypertext current is incredibly strong - We're risking losing the topic beam altogether and then we'll be stuck in the series of tubes without a topic forever!"
-
True, that. Losing the topic, we are. @!$# the topic! Full posts ahead!! As for fresh water, you can manufacture plenty of that, given enough... energy, yea... makes regulating those greenhouses possible too! And yes, I'm really looking forwards to
3He + 3He → 4He + 2 p (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion) fusion tech.
Aneutronic fusion reactions produce the overwhelming bulk of their energy in the form of charged particles instead of neutrons. This means that energy could be converted directly into electricity by various techniques. Many proposed direct conversion techniques are based on mature technology derived from other fields, such as microwave technology, and some involve equipment that is more compact and potentially cheaper than that involved in conventional thermal production of electricity.
In contrast, fusion fuels like deuterium-tritium (DT), which produce most of their energy in the form of neutrons, require a standard thermal cycle, in which the neutrons are used to boil water, and the resulting steam drives a large turbine and generator. This equipment is sufficiently expensive that about 80% of the capital cost of a typical fossil-fuel electric power generating station is in the thermal conversion equipment.[citation needed]
Thus, fusion with DT fuels could not significantly reduce the capital costs of electric power generation even if the fusion reactor that produces the neutrons were cost-free. (Fuel costs would, however be greatly reduced.) But according to proponents, aneutronic fusion with direct electric conversion could, in theory, produce electricity with reduced capital costs.
Direct conversion techniques can either be inductive, based on changes in magnetic fields, or electrostatic, based on making charged particles work against an electric field.[28] If the fusion reactor worked in a pulsed mode, inductive techniques could be used.
A sizable fraction of the energy released by aneutronic fusion would not remain in the charged fusion products but would instead be radiated as x-rays.[29] Some of this energy could also be converted directly to electricity. X-rays passing though an array of conducting foils would transfer some of their energy to electrons, which can then be captured electrostatically.[citation needed] Since X-rays can go through far greater thickness of material than electrons can, many hundreds or even thousands of layers would be needed to absorb most of the X-rays.
(Also see the article on Fusion power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power).)
-
Wouldn't fusion use up the worlds oceans relatively quickly?
-
It would just superheat and vaporize the water used in cooling, turning it into rain for someone more inland. The amount of water consumed in electrolysis would actually be extremely insignificant; just grab a bucket of sea water, distill it, cool the vapor, run a current through it to get the hydrogen, and stick it in your reactor. Obviously, that's not the actual process, but you get the point.
-
Wouldn't fusion use up the worlds oceans relatively quickly?
No.
The thing is, fusion reactions release a lot more energy per reaction than fission reactions.
Also, normal one-proton hydrogen is all but useless for (first-gen) fusion technology, so most of the water will not be used at all. The reactors will be using deuterium, which is present in heavy water, and tritium, which can be obtained from Lithium-6 or Lithium-7 by bombarding them with neutrons.
And, as deuterium-tritium-reaction results in helium-4, a neutron and energy, it's possible to simply cover the insides of the reactor with lithium in order to create the needed tritium. And, as lithium is the 33rd most abundant material on Earth, there'll be a long time until we risk running out of that stuff. So even using deuterium from the oceans and tritium bred from lithium, the fuel reserves would last estimated hundreds of thousands years IIRC.
Furthermore, it's estimated that deuterium+tritium->helium+neutron -reaction will likely be used in the first gen fusion reactors because it is one of the easiest to achieve. In the future, deuterium+deuterium is probably possible to achieve - it produces less neutrons than D+T-reaction, which is good, because neutron flux makes the reactor structure radioactive and lessens the amount of easily collectable energy from the reaction. Charged particles' energy can be converted more directly to electricity than neutrons' energy.
There are also more possibilities on fusion reactions, which are more difficult to achieve, but as the engineering advances, they should become available, and thus they'll give even wider range of fusion fuel to use. And that means that when the fusion power becomes widely available, it will not run out of fuel any time soon. :)