CURE FOR HIV POSSIBLY DISCOVERED

Wired’s brief explanation of what scientists at UPenn may have discovered. The site will link you to the full report as well.

From Wired:

Back in the 1990′s, researchers took interest in a handful of promiscuous gay men who were able to engage in sexual relations with their HIV-positive partners with impunity. Most of them had a mutation that kept their cells from producing normal CCR5 protein.

Armed with that knowledge, scientists have developed several tactics to block the production of CCR5 or perturb its shape so that the HIV virus can’t grab onto it during the first step of its hijacking attempt. The strategy is much akin to cutting your hair before a wrestling match: It gives your opponent one less thing to grab onto.

Image and link via Wired.com

MICROWAVE + PING PONG BALL = AWESOME

Watch the below video to see what happens when a ping pong ball is placed in a microwave. (Spoiler – flames erupt.)

via MentalFloss

THE DEFENSE FOR ADHD

The New Scientist explains that while we are all medicating our children for this unwanted “disorder”, at one time there may have been an evolutionary benefit of ADHD. Technically it serves no such benefit to civilized, modern day people, but they argue that perhaps the gene that causes ADHD once did aid in the survival of nomadic tribes that needed to always be doing something and moving.

The nomads’ active and unpredictable life centred on herding might benefit from spontaneity, says Ben Campbell, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, US, who was involved in the new study.

“If you are a nomad then you ought to be little more impulsive than if you are settled,” he says. “You should be a little quicker on the trigger.”