Friday, September 01, 2006
Hot Air
A reasonably large study of US veterans, followed for eight years and tested on the Cook-Medley scale for Hostility and a lung power test, suggests that crotchety old men, famous for yelling and hollering, seem to be in fact less fit to do so than their less-angry peers.
On the other hand, there is good news in the air for HIV vaccine researchers: a Swedish study has found that air-pressure injection of a dual HIV vaccine (HIV DNA and a viral gene host) induced very promising immune responses in humans. Could a vaccine be on the way? Anything's possible, but I'm afraid I'm not very hopeful.
More hopeful still is news that gene therapy seems to have cured two men of skin cancer. But with such a low rate of success (2/17), it's unclear how real this is.
In prevention news, it seems that obese men are less fertile, and that drinking fruit juice may help prevent Alzheimer's. Does this mean that the next generation will be skinnier, and do Greyhounds count? (Probably: "no" and "sortof.")
On the other hand, there is good news in the air for HIV vaccine researchers: a Swedish study has found that air-pressure injection of a dual HIV vaccine (HIV DNA and a viral gene host) induced very promising immune responses in humans. Could a vaccine be on the way? Anything's possible, but I'm afraid I'm not very hopeful.
More hopeful still is news that gene therapy seems to have cured two men of skin cancer. But with such a low rate of success (2/17), it's unclear how real this is.
In prevention news, it seems that obese men are less fertile, and that drinking fruit juice may help prevent Alzheimer's. Does this mean that the next generation will be skinnier, and do Greyhounds count? (Probably: "no" and "sortof.")
