Scientists have detected a flash of light from across the Galaxy so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's upper atmosphere. This "giant flare" was the brightest explosion ever detected from beyond the Solar System. For over a tenth of a second the remarkable flare was actually brighter than a full moon.
Artist's impression of a shell of gamma-rays moving away from SGR 1806-20 following the outburst, and sweeping across the galaxy until they interact with the Earth.
NASA and European satellites and ground-based telescopes around the world detected the giant flare on 27 December 2004. Scientists from twenty institutes joined the observations. Two science teams report about this unprecedented event in a forthcoming issue of Nature.
The light detected from the giant flare was far brighter in gamma rays than visible light or X-rays. It was probably created by an unprecedented eruption on the surface of an exotic neutron star which is classed both as an ultra-magnetic magnetar and as a soft gamma repeater (SGR). The designation of the neutron star that erupted is SGR 1806-20, about 50,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.
Re: Brightest Explosion Ever Observed Overwhelms Telescopes sethur February 23rd, 2005 - 9:31 AMIs it possible that this event was preceded by some sort of gravity wave, and if so, could this have triggered the earthquake that led to the tsunami just a few hours earlier?
Steve W
Re: Brightest Explosion Ever Observed Overwhelms Telescopes Dingo1 February 24th, 2005 - 11:41 AMNo, what triggered the earthquake was a fault slippage, a common occurance along fault-lines
Re: Brightest Explosion Ever Observed Overwhelms Telescopes Qazaq2003 February 24th, 2005 - 10:50 PMDingo, The fault line where the earthquake that triggered the tsunami in the eastern Indian Ocean is a subduction fault, where one plate slides under another, and is marked by a trench. Q
Two members of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society have discovered an engraving in a cave in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, which may be at least 10,000 years old.
Graham Mullan and Linda Wilson, who have spent much of the last ten years studying Palaeolithic cave art, recently began a systematic search of caves in southern Britain in the belief that such works in this country would not simply be confined to those found at Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire.
The first results of this study are a series of inscribed crosses found on the wall of Aveline’s Hole in Burrington Combe, Somerset. Aveline’s Hole is famous as being the site of the earliest known cemetery in the British Isles. Recent work by Dr Rick Schulting and English Heritage shows that it was intensively used for burials shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, during the early Mesolithic period, and is this country’s oldest known cemetery.
Scientists have given us another reason to eat carrots - a compound found in the popular root vegetable has been found to have an effect on the development of cancer.
A team of researchers, from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England and Denmark, found the natural pesticide falcarinol reduced the risk of cancer developing in rats by one third.
Although experts have recommended that people eat carrots for their anti-cancer properties, it has not been known exactly what component of the vegetable has this effect.
A recent study attempting to quantify misclassification of HIV/AIDS deaths concluded that for the year 2000–01, the number of deaths related to HIV/AIDS was likely to be almost three times as high as that published in the Government’s statistical report compiled from death certificates. The study suggests that 80% of the excess deaths in men and 70% in women attributable to HIV were classified as tuberculosis or lower respiratory tract infections.
Social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS prevents many from speaking out about the true cause of illness and death among friends and family and leads doctors to record uncontroversial diagnoses on death certificates. The South African Government needs to face the truth about HIV mortality states the editorial.
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS skeptigirl February 12th, 2005 - 1:10 PMThis problem is so much deeper than the mere under counting of HIV caused death counts.
S.A. President Mebeki has been publicly claiming HIV doesn't cause AIDS for years. He has claimed everything from it's a US plot to antiretroviral drugs cause AIDS.
If you do a Google search for HIV doesn't cause AIDS, you get this nonsense as the 5th entry. (If you are not familiar with how your link becomes #5 on Google, it is by having the fifth most links to your page from other people's sites.*)
The supposed 'Virus Myth' article concludes,
Quote
The huge, alleged AIDS epidemic in Africa is based on several factors which have no scientific basis: 1) WHO's faulty estimates, 2) the nonspecific clinical case definition of AIDS, and 3) grossly inaccurate HIV antibody tests which are not applicable in Africa.
While AIDS authorities proclaim that 25.3 million Africans are doomed to die, in reality, no one knows if a single one of them is infected with HIV.
Johnson is an independent free-lance journalist who lives in the Los Angeles area and can be reached at
All of these supposed papers are quite flawed and also quite convincing to anyone unfamiliar with the science distorted in these discussions.
We exist in the world of information and yet we have a whole group of people who still live in a world of fantasy and myth.
*When I first posted this the Google search had the 'virusmyth' link as #2. When I tested the link after posting, it had become #5. Apparently Google updates the search pages fairly regularly.
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS Yevaud February 12th, 2005 - 1:43 PMSkeptigirl, I did exactly that.
That man is a charlatan. This was evident, when he stated that PCR "enhances" DNA in detecting the presence of HIV. Huh. Actually, PCR "Polymerase Chain Reaction" forces the frenetic replication of an organic DNA based substance, literally forcing it to churn out millions of copies of itself (I know you know this, merely repeating it for those who don't).
Further reading suggests that he obtains all of his information from commercially available publications, not specific scientific journals, peer reviews, etc. I have run into these people before - they'll argue with great fervor about something, only for you to find out that their professional experience is nil, and that they'd obtained their information from "Omni" magazine.
Simply, you are exactly correct. HIV causes AIDS. What other possible connection does "Ram" require? It is devastating the African continent's people.
As the physicist John Archibald wheeler said, "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."
--Yev
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS skeptigirl February 12th, 2005 - 2:20 PMThanks for bringing this article to more people's attention, BTW.
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS Qazaq2003 February 14th, 2005 - 1:54 PMNow this is an issue that I take very very personally, for I am dealing with HIV myself. I have skimmed through the links, and what a bunch of TRASH. These friggin' idiots don't know a dang thing about HIV/AIDS, and to have a leader of a country, one Thabo Mbeki of South Africa going around and spreading a very dangerous myth about HIV/AIDS is enough to make my blood boil. I as well, thank you for bringing this to people's attention. Q
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS Yevaud February 14th, 2005 - 3:56 PMI have worked with numerous people with HIV in various stages of progression. Knowing what I know - which doesn't hold a candle to the specific medical professionals - still leads me to certain conclusions and commentaries for the "Rams" of the world.
1. If HIV doesn't cause AIDS, then why does HIV virtually always progress into AIDS?
2. Anti-viral "cocktails" slow and even halt the progression, reducing viral loads to undetectable levels. Which leads immediately to the next point:
3. As the anti-viral treatments were specifically researched with an eye towards treating AIDS, what is "Ram" suggesting? That it was just one accident after another, over a period of over 20 years? That via continual serendipity, these medications just "happen" to treat his unnamed mystery-illness, and that any possible connections towards treating AIDS are superficial at best? I bet Luc Montaigne and Robert Gallo would be very surprised to learn this.
I might add, noitice that he contradicts well-known science, but has no suggestions as to what IS causing AIDS. All he does in contradict. How...convenient.
Jesus. If it walks like a Duck, Quacks like a Duck, and flies like a Duck, he says it's actually a Wildebeast.
A fascinating read is the research into people who are known as "Long-Term Non-Progressors" (LTNP's), who have been infected, in some case many decades ago, but still demonstrate no symptomology. And a link has been found.
There are two protein "docking sites" on the surface membrane of most cells - the very ones that the HIV retro virus must dock to so as to penetrate the cell-membrane. In a certain percentage of people, one or both of these surface sites are misfolded. Thus, HIV cannot gain a foothold. And they've found out wherein these misfolded surface proteins came from:
The Bubonic Plague, good old Yersinia Pestis, that's what. Apparently this immunity is found only in Caucasian populations, who have one or more ancestors who survived the plague. Somehow, having been infected altered the genotype to cause the alteration in the cell surface-sites.
But the nimrods of the world (and Mbeki is one of them) don't believe a damned word of it. They'd rather believe some sort of hypothetical fairy-tale, rather than understand that HIV is a disease. It doesn't discriminate. It's gender-neutral.
Great Ghu, please spare us such arrogant ignorance...
--Yev
"My doctor says I need an MRI." "Naw, you don't need no f-ing MRI..."
Conversation between two construction workers, overheard on a subway
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS yale February 14th, 2005 - 5:30 PM"The Bubonic Plague, good old Yersinia Pestis, that's what. Apparently this immunity is found only in Caucasian populations, who have one or more ancestors who survived the plague. Somehow, having been infected altered the genotype to cause the alteration in the cell surface-sites."
It seems more likely to me that people from the 1300's randomly carrying the genotype resulting in the misfolded proteins survived at a higher rate, increasing the frequency of the genes.
yale
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS Yevaud February 15th, 2005 - 2:16 PMAlways a possibility, of course. However, here's some excerpts from a paper by Dr. Stephen O'Brien at the National Cancer Institute, who is a principal researcher in the HIV field:
Quote
When might these epidemics have happened? Patterns of allele frequencies among different ethnic groups help to answer this question. As noted, CCR2-64I is found in all groups, while CCR5-delta32 is restricted to Caucasians and, rarely, African Americans. SDF1-3'A has an intermediate distribution. Caucasians are thought to have diverged from an African ancestry some 150,000 to 200,000 years ago, with Asians diverging subsequently from Caucasians (Figure 7). If so, CCR2-64I, occurring in all ethnic groups, would be the oldest of the mutations, whereas CCR5-delta32 occurring almost exclusively in Caucasians, would be the newest. (Its occurrence in African Americans would reflect gene flow from Caucasians during the last 500 to 600 years.) SDF1-3'A would have an intermediate age.
As well...
Quote
...the result is 27.5 generations, or only 688 years, with a 95% confidence interval of 11 to 75 generations, or 275 to 1,875 years. This places the age of the CCR5-delta32-bearing haplotype--or rather, a sweep of selective mortality favoring the survival of persons with the mutation--in a span of years centered in the early 14th Century, a timing intriguingly close to history's worst epidemic among Caucasians, the Black Death, which killed as much as a third of all Europeans in the years 1346 to 1352. Three-fourths of all infected persons died. As it happens, the bubonic plague pathogen, Yersinia pestis, carries a 70-kilobase plasmid, which in turn encodes a protein, Yop 1, that enters and kills macrophages. One wonders whether the pathogen targets CCR5, and whether a mutation like CCR5-delta32 protected its carriers against plague, as it protects today against AIDS. Work is now underway to determine whether cells with differing CCR5 genotype react differently to plague. There is also the question of how the genotype affects Shigella, Salmonella, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis --all of which attack host macro-phages. Thus, the findings in AIDS suggest a new context in which to explore how pathogens prey on host cells. Our laboratory is now applying approaches learned in AIDS to a search for host resistance genes against hepatitis B and C.
Anyways, it's not conclusive, but very intriguing.
--Yev
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS yale February 15th, 2005 - 3:04 PM"a sweep of selective mortality favoring the survival of persons with the mutation"
Thats a re-statement of my point: "It seems more likely to me that people from the 1300's randomly carrying the genotype resulting in the misfolded proteins survived at a higher rate, increasing the frequency of the genes."
yale
Re: South Africa In Denial Over Number Of Deaths From HIV/AIDS skeptigirl February 28th, 2005 - 2:54 AM
"a sweep of selective mortality favoring the survival of persons with the mutation"
Thats a re-statement of my point: "It seems more likely to me that people from the 1300's randomly carrying the genotype resulting in the misfolded proteins survived at a higher rate, increasing the frequency of the genes."
yale
I think Yev just drew the wrong conclusion for the mechanism of natural selection here. It isn't more likely, it is the only explanation with the caveat it may have been an accompanying mutation that was selected and this one was just along for the ride.
The CCR5 deletion (mutation being discussed here) is only in about 10% of Northern Europeans if my memory is correct. There are no persons with this mutation coming from Africa without inter-mixing with Europeans.
There is a quirk though. About 60% of Hasidic Jews carry the mutation. Interbreeding apparently.
You have to inherit 2 copies, one from each parent, to have strong resistance to HIV and even then it isn't absolute. The HIV virus can still get around the white cell protein that results from the deletion but it probably takes a much larger infectious dose.
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I as well, thank you for bringing this to people's attention. Q
