[BRIEF NOTE] HIV in 1884?

The below interesting new item on the genesis of HIV/AIDS comes ultimately from Nature.

A biopsy taken from an African woman nearly 50 years ago contains traces of the HIV genome, researchers have found. Analysis of sequences from the newly discovered sample suggests that the virus has been plaguing humans for almost a century.

Although AIDS was not recognized until the 1980s, HIV was infecting humans well before then. Researchers hope that by studying the origin and evolution of HIV, they can learn more about how the virus made the leap from chimpanzees to humans, and work out how best to design a vaccine to fight it.

In 1998, researchers reported the isolation of HIV-1 sequences from a blood sample taken in 1959 from a Bantu male living in Léopoldville — now Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Analysis of that sample and others suggested that HIV-1 originates from sometime between 1915 and 1941.

Now, researchers report in Nature that they have uncovered another historic sample, collected in 1960 from a woman who also lived in Léopoldville.

It took evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his colleagues eight years of searching for suitable tissue collections originating in Africa before they tracked down the 1960 lymph node biopsy at the University of Kinshasa.

The samples had all been treated with harsh chemicals, embedded in paraffin wax and left at room temperature for decades. The acidic chemicals had broken the genome up into small fragments. Formalin, a chemical used to prepare samples for microscopy, had crosslinked nucleic acids with protein. "It's as if you had a nice pearl necklace of DNA and RNA and protein and you clumped it together, drenched it in glue and then dried it out," says Worobey.

The team worked out a combination of methods that would allow them to sequence DNA and RNA from the samples; another lab at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, confirmed the results, also finding traces of the HIV-1 genome in the lymph node biopsy.

Using a database of HIV-1 sequences and an estimate of the rate at which these sequences change over time, the researchers modelled when HIV-1 first surfaced. Their results showed that the most likely date for HIV's emergence was about 1908, when Léopoldville was emerging as a centre for trade.

Although that date will not surprise most HIV researchers, the new data should help persuade those who were unconvinced by the 1959 sample, says Beatrice Hahn, an HIV researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

1884 is the earliest date that Worobey gives for HIV's emergence as an infectious virus among humans. What happened in the year after 1884, 1885? That's when the ever so shiny and happy Congo Free State was established in 1885. I don't think I'm alone in wondering whether the terrible sufferings and mass displacements of Congolese and other central African populations under European rule--the Germans in Cameroon, the French in Congo-Brazzaville, an unholy international conglomerate in the Congo Free State--might have had something to do with the virus' emergence.

We already knew that colonialism kills. It turns out that it can do so in rather unexpected ways, too.

[LINK] "Ontario shortfall $11.8B, McGuinty says"

As Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson report in the Toronto Star, the question of Ontario's econopmic standing within Canada has not only been taken up at the federal level but the provincial one as well.

The cost of fairness for Ontario is $11.8 billion.

So says Premier Dalton McGuinty, who for years has refused to reveal how much he'd like to shrink the gap between what Ontarians send to Ottawa and is returned in federal services and transfer payments.

While McGuinty has long spoken of a "$23 billion gap" – though it now hovers closer to $20 billion – he's been reluctant to say how much more the federal government should leave in Ontario.

That is, until yesterday.

Armed with a new report by TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond, which revealed the $11.8 billion figure, the premier gleefully delivered a eureka moment.

"Nobody's ever put a number on it before. (Journalists) often ask me, `So how much of the $20 billion or the $21 billion do you want to keep?' Well, Don Drummond actually put a number on it," said McGuinty.

"He says the discrimination against Ontario can be quantified precisely at $11.8 billion," he said. "If we had $11.8 billion here, right now, we wouldn't be talking about a struggling economy."

Indeed, Drummond concluded in his report that "there may be a compelling story of discrimination" for the $11.8 billion, which is based on calculations from 2005 Statistics Canada figures. "It's hard to say what it would be now," said senior TD economist Derek Burleton, who also worked on the report.

[. . .]

In an effort to influence voters, the Ontario government yesterday distributed 6,000 flyers titled "this election vote fairness for Ontario" at 10 subway stations, with lawn signs to be available through MPPs' offices. Overall, the province has spent about $50,000 on the "fairness" campaign; the non-partisan material boasts the word "Vote" in Tory blue, Liberal red, NDP orange, and Green Party green.

The flyers recap concerns that McGuinty has been trying for years to impress on Ontarians and their MPs in Ottawa, but with little success. They include the assertion that the average laid-off worker in Ontario gets $4,600 less in Employment Insurance than counterparts in other provinces and that southern Ontario – where manufacturers are struggling – deserves a federal economic development program like the ones for Atlantic Canada and Quebec.

On unemployment, McGuinty admitted the government's "second careers" strategy – with space for about 20,000 workers seeking long-term retraining for up to two years with $20,000 in support for tuition and housing costs – has so far attracted only 1,100 people.

Training, Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy was defensive when asked about the program's apparent ineffectiveness. "I'm saying that we've had some wonderful success stories on an individual basis. We're going to take a look at the program to ensure that it's effective as possible," he said.

[MUSIC] The Cure, "Friday I'm in Love" and "Lovesong"

What I like so much about The Cure's 1992 "Friday I'm in Love" is that it's such so lush, between Robert Smith's faintly throaty voice and the energetic instrumentals and the polished production. I really regret that I can't embed the music video here, since the video--to my mind, at any rate--but their 1989 "Lovesong", which fortunately has a video that can be embedded, shares the same vibes.

"David Bowie Brit Awards '96 Hallo Spaceboy with Pet Shop Boys" (Watch on YouTube)

(no subject)

Thanks to raphinou for pointing out the existence of dailymotion.

"Spock Dies: Star Trek - Funeral Scene Tribute To Leonard Nimoy" (Watch on YouTube)

The Cure - Friday I'm In Love
Uploaded by manon42

[MUSIC]

Glorious pop with a gloriously anarchic music video: What's not to like?