New research shows more promise for using AIDS treatment drugs as a prevention tool, to help keep uninfected people from catching HIV during sex with a partner who has the virus.

There were no infections among gay men who used a two-drug combo pill either daily or just before and after sex with someone with HIV, one study found. In a second study, no uninfected men caught the virus if they had sex only with a partner whose HIV was well suppressed by medicines.

Both studies were discussed Tuesday at the International AIDS conference in Amsterdam.

The United States’ top AIDS scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called the results “very impressive” and “really striking.”

About 36 million people worldwide have HIV and 1.8 million new infections occur each year, said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“The only way you’re going to end the epidemic is by preventing additional cases of transmission,” he said. The treatment drugs are “tools that, if widely implemented, theoretically could end the epidemic.”

Expanding access to them is not only humanitarian but also smart policy, Fauci added.

“You get a twofer: You save the life of the person who’s infected … and you’re making it virtually impossible for that person to transmit that infection to their sexual partner.”

Until there’s a vaccine, condoms are the best way to prevent HIV infection, but not everyone uses them or does so all the time, so other options are needed. 

A two-drug combo used to treat people with HIV, sold as Truvada by Gilead Sciences and in generic form in some countries, has been shown to help prevent infection when one partner has the virus and one does not, but the evidence so far has been strongest for male-female couples.

Preventive pills

A new study was designed as a real-world test in about 1,600 gay men in the Paris region who were at high risk of getting HIV because of many sex partners, reluctance to use condoms or other reasons. They were offered the preventive pills either for daily use, as is recommended in the United States, or “on demand” — before and after unprotected sex. A little more than half chose on demand, and have been tested every three months to see if they had caught HIV.

“Since we started a year ago, we have not seen a single infection,” said the study leader, Dr. Jean-Michel Molina of Saint Louis Hospital in Paris. “On-demand seems to be at least as effective as daily when it’s used in real life.”

No one stopped using the drugs because of side effects.

“Now we can have just as much confidence in the power of treatment as prevention for gay male couples as we have had for heterosexual couples,” said Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, AIDS conference chief and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Center at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Suppressing HIV

The second study tested a different approach — keeping an infected partner’s virus severely suppressed with HIV medicines, which is known to greatly reduce the risk of spreading it.

Dr. Alison Rodger of University College London led a study of 779 gay male couples in 14 European countries where one partner was uninfected and the other was taking drugs to suppress HIV. They were tested every six to 12 months to see if the infected partner still had the virus under control, and whether the other partner had caught it.

After a median of 18 months, none of the infected men spread HIV to their partner, despite about 75,000 sex acts without condoms. There were 17 new HIV infections among men who were uninfected when the study started; tests showed those infections were from sex with someone other than the partner in the study.
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Now’s the time to catch Mars in the night sky.

Next week, the red planet is making its closest approach to Earth in 15 years.

The two planets will be just 35.8 million miles (57.6 million kilometers) apart next Tuesday. And on Friday, Mars will be in opposition. That means Mars and the sun will be on exact opposite sides of Earth. That same day, parts of the world will see a total lunar eclipse.

Mars is already brighter than usual and will shine even more — and appear bigger — as Tuesday nears. Astronomers expect good viewing through early August.

A massive dust storm presently engulfing Mars, however, is obscuring surface details normally visible through telescopes. The Martian atmosphere is so full of dust that NASA’s Opportunity rover can’t recharge — not enough sunlight can reach its solar panels — and so it’s been silent since June 10. Flight controllers don’t expect to hear from 14-year-old Opportunity until the storm subsides, and maybe not even then.

The good news about all the Martian dust is that it reflects sunlight, which makes for an even brighter red planet, said Widener University astronomer Harry Augensen.

“It’s magnificent. It’s as bright as an airplane landing light,” Augensen said. “Not quite as bright as Venus, but still because of the reddish, orange-ish-red color, you really can’t miss it in the sky.”

In 2003, Mars and Earth were the closest in nearly 60,000 years — 34.6 million miles (55.7 million kilometers). NASA said that won’t happen again until 2287. The next close approach, meanwhile, in 2020, will be 38.6 million miles (62 million kilometers), according to NASA.

Observatories across the U.S. are hosting Mars-viewing events next week. Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory will provide a live online view of Mars early Tuesday.

The total lunar eclipse on Friday will be visible in Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth and moon line up perfectly, casting Earth’s shadow on the moon. Friday’s will be long, lasting 1 hour and 43 minutes.
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Britain’s Prince Harry joined pop star Elton John on Tuesday to launch a campaign to raise HIV awareness among men, warning that “dangerous complacency” about the virus threatened the quest to wipe it out.

The billion-dollar project “MenStar” will target men living with or at risk of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been ravaged by AIDS since the 1980s.

“The MenStar coalition is bravely tackling the root cause of this problem — the lack of awareness of HIV prevention amongst hard-to-reach young men,” Harry said at the 22nd International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam.

Speaking at the launch, which also featured South African actress Charlize Theron and Ndaba Mandela, the grandson of late President Nelson Mandela, Elton John said: “If we want to end AIDS once and for all, we must make men part of the solution.”

Around 36.7 million people around the world have HIV, according to 2016 figures cited by the United Nations’ HIV/AIDS body UNAIDS. Fewer than half of men living with HIV receive treatment compared with 60 percent of women, it said.

“It is time there was a global coalition to teach men to protect themselves. And in doing so, it will teach them to better protect not only their wives and girlfriends, their sisters and daughters, but also, critically, their brothers and their sons,” the British singer said.

UNAIDS said this month that the fight against HIV/AIDS was “slipping off track” and while deaths were falling and treatment rates rising, rates of new HIV infections threatened to derail efforts to defeat the disease.

Prince Harry said the campaign launch came at “a time when new energetic and innovative solutions are needed more than ever before.”

“MenStar” is supported by the U.S. government’s PEPSTAR program and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Experts at the conference hope for the elimination of AIDS worldwide by 2030, but the United Nations warned last Wednesday of a funding gap of £4.6 billion that threatens efforts.
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The eruption of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano could last for months or years and threaten new communities on the Big Island, according to a report by U.S. government geologists.

A main risk is a possible change in the direction of a lava flow that would destroy more residential areas after at least 712 homes were torched and thousands of residents forced to evacuate since Kilauea began erupting on May 3, the report by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.

A higher volume of molten rock is flowing underground from Kilauea’s summit lava reservoir than in previous eruptions, with supply to a single giant crack — fissure 8 — showing no sign of waning, according to the study published last week.

“If the ongoing eruption maintains its current style of activity at a high eruption rate, then it may take months to a year or two to wind down,” said the report designed to help authorities on the Big Island deal with potential risks from the volcano.

Lava is bursting from same area about 25 miles (40 km) down Kilauea’s eastern side as it did in eruptions of 1840, 1955 and 1960, the report said. The longest of those eruptions was in 1955. It lasted 88 days, separated by pauses in activity.

The current eruption could become the longest in the volcano’s recorded history, it added.

Geologists believe previous eruptions may have stopped as underground lava pressure dropped due to multiple fissures opening up in this Lower East Rift Zone, the report said.

The current eruption has coalesced around a single fissure, allowing lava pressure to remain high.

A 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) lava river now flows to the ocean from this “source cone” through an elevated channel about 52 to 72 feet (16 to 22 meters) above ground.

“The main hazard from the source cone and the channel system is a failure of the cone or channel walls, or blockage of the channel where it divides in narrower braids. Either could divert most, if not all, of the lava to a new course depending on where the breach occurs,” the report said.

The report said it only considered risks from a change in lava flow direction to communities to the north of the channel as residents there have not been evacuated, whereas residents to the south have already left their homes.
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An international team of scientists has moved closer to creating artificial embryos after using mouse stem cells to make structures capable of taking a crucial step in the development of life.

Experts said the results suggested human embryos could be created in a similar way in future — a step that would allow scientists to use artificial embryos rather than real ones to research the very earliest stages of human development.

The team, led by Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a professor at Britain’s Cambridge University, had previously created a simpler structure resembling a mouse embryo in a lab dish. That work involved two types of stem cells and a three-dimensional scaffold on which they could grow.

But in new work published Monday in the journal Nature Cell Biology, the scientists developed the structures further — using three types of stem cells — enabling a process called gastrulation, an essential step in which embryonic cells begin self-organizing into a correct structure for an embryo to form.

“Our artificial embryos underwent the most important event in life in the culture dish,” Zernicka-Goetz said in a statement about the work. “They are now extremely close to real embryos.”

She said the team should now be better able to understand how the three stem cell types interact to enable embryo development. And by experimentally altering biological pathways in one cell type, they should be able to see how this affects the behavior of the other cell types.

“The early stages of embryo development are when a large proportion of pregnancies are lost and yet it is a stage that we know very little about,” said Zernicka-Goetz.

“Now we have a way of simulating embryonic development in the culture dish, so it should be possible to understand exactly what is going on during this remarkable period in an embryo’s life, and why sometimes this process fails.”

Christophe Galichet, a senior research scientist at Britain’s Francis Crick Institute who was not directly involved in this work, agreed that the results held promise.

“While [this study] did not use human stem cells, it is not too far-fetched to think the technique could one day be applied to studying early human embryos,” he said in an emailed comment. “These self-assembled human embryos would be an invaluable tool to understand early human development.”
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Scientists say the longest total lunar eclipse of this century will grace the night sky on Friday, turning the moon a reddish color.

NASA says the lunar eclipse will last for 1 hour and 43 minutes with total viability in Eastern Africa and Central Asia. Residents in most of the world will be able to see at least a partial eclipse. However, it won’t be visible from North America.

Scientists say that in the United States the period of totality will start around 4:21 p.m. Eastern time, making it too light outside to see the red moon.

During a lunar eclipse, the moon appears to be red because it lines up perfectly with the Earth and sun such that the Earth’s shadow totally blocks the sun’s light. The moon loses the brightness normally caused by the reflection of the sun’s light and takes on an eerie, reddish glow, giving the lunar eclipse moon the nickname of blood moon.

Scientists say the reason this Friday’s lunar eclipse is especially long is because the moon is passing almost directly through the central part of Earth’s shadow. To compare, it falls just 4 minutes shy of the longest possible time a lunar eclipse could last.

For those who aren’t able to see the lunar eclipse this month, July has another treat in store for skygazers when Mars makes a close approach to Earth. Mars will appear about 10 times brighter than usual the last few days of the month, with peak brightness occurring on July 31.

Everyone in the world will have the possibility to see this celestial phenomenon, providing the skies are clear.
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The use of packaging plastic continues to rise as the world’s population grows. Environmentalists say compostable and biodegradable packaging is needed now more than ever, particularly when it comes to plastics used to protect our food.  But now, a biodegradable film made from discarded shellfish and trees may fill that need. It’s being developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Lead researcher Carson Meredith is interested in exploring alternatives to crude-oil-based plastics now being used. “Probably about eight years ago, we got involved in what’s referred to as forest-based nanotechnology,” he told VOA news.  This is an emerging area “looking at using wood and other plant resources to extract high performance nano-crystalline materials made out of cellulose and using those in creating light-weight, high strength materials.”

Wood, clamshells, lobsters

What that means, is that the same cellulose fibers found in woody plants used to make paper can also be used to replace plastic packaging material. Meredith’s group found that by combining the plant cellulose with chitin, the hard material that makes up clamshells and the exoskeleton of lobsters, they could create a biodegradable coating.

At the molecular level, chitin and cellulose are oppositely charged — meaning they are attracted to each other. The Georgia Tech scientists used this property when they sprayed very thin, alternating layers of the two materials onto a base. 

“In this case, we chose to use polylactic acid, or PLA, which is also derived from natural materials and is biodegradable,” said Meredith. PLA is a plastic made from renewable sources such as corn starch or sugarcane. It can be a clear film like cellophane or shaped into disposable tableware.

Plastics without crude oil

There is a common misconception that all plastics are made using crude oil. Susan Selke, who directs the Center for Packing Innovation and Sustainability, explained that technically, the term plastic refers to “a long-chain carbon-based structure that is capable of being shaped through an application of heat and pressure.” She continued, “PLA itself is classified as a compostable plastic. So if you put it into a municipal composting program that’s organized to get to the elevated temperatures with lots of moisture, then what happens is that the PLA hydrolyzes. And once it’s hydrolyzed, then it can biodegrade.”

So in the case of the new plastic film, Meredith and his co-authors used a clear flexible PLA base and applied alternating layers of chitin and cellulose nano-fibers that dry into a thin, but durable clear plastic like that used most commonly in grocery stores.

Meredith notes his research shows that the chitin and cellulose “perform much better as two or three thin layers, than they would as independent materials of equivalent thickness.”

The new material is exceptionally good at keeping oxygen out, which would make it useful for food packaging. Meredith says they haven’t formally tested it as a food packing material, but one of the attractions is that this would be a compostable packaging material that would be completely biodegradable.

Green alternative

Moving forward, Meredith hopes to see the new material put to use as a green alternative, although challenges remain. “I think the major challenge for commercializing this would be having a scalable supply chain of raw materials. Right now that largely doesn’t exist,”he told VOA. 

Selke agrees, wondering how cost-effective the material might be. “It’s going to have to compete with other kinds of materials that are designed to do the same kind of thing in improving the barrier.”

Although future obstacles remain, the new material has two key benefits. The plastic itself is completely composed of bio-materials, and is compostable, meaning it can break down without the harmful pollution associated with fossil fuel-based plastics.
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Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin was noticeably absent from a gala kicking off a yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, even though his nonprofit space education foundation is a sponsor and he typically is the star attraction.

Aldrin said he didn’t attend because of objections over the foundation’s current aims and ongoing legal matters associated with the foundation. The former astronaut is locked in a legal battle with family members who say he is suffering from mental decline.

The black-tie Apollo Celebration Gala was held Saturday under a Saturn V rocket at the Kennedy Space Center, featured a panel discussion by astronauts, an awards ceremony, and an auction of space memorabilia.

Hundreds of people attended the sold-out event, including British physicist Brian Cox, who presented Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson with the ShareSpace Foundation’s Innovation award.

Branson, whose company is developing a new generation of commercial spacecraft, said in a recorded video that the Apollo missions influenced his generation.

“Space is still hard, really hard. It still really matters,” Branson said. “There would be no Virgin Galactic, no Virgin Orbit and no spaceship company had it not been for Apollo astronauts and the thousands of talented people who made their mission possible.”

Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins took part in the historic Apollo 11 mission, landing the first two humans on the moon on July 20, 1969. Armstrong was first to walk on the moon, joined soon after by Aldrin while Collins remained in orbit aboard the command module.

Dr. Carolyn Williams of the nonprofit From One Hand To AnOTHER received the foundation’s Education award, and former Johnson Space Center director Gerry Griffin, a flight director for all of the crewed Apollo missions, was honored with the Pioneer award.

“It’s very humbling, it kind of came out of the blue,” Griffin said. “It is so neat to know that we’ve passed the torch that will let this next generation take us to this next step.”

That next step, Griffin said, is a return of Americans to the moon and, eventually, Mars — something former Apollo astronauts Walt Cunningham, Harrison Schmitt, Rusty Schweickart and Tom Stafford discussed during a conversation with Cox.

“We’re sort of going through a second door here. The door isn’t all the way open — we haven’t gone all the way through it — but it’s cracked open,” Schweickart, who flew as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 9, told The Associated Press. “Space is going to be much less expensive to go to, and that’s going to open up not just opportunities for people to fly, but because of the decreased cost, real opportunities for innovators to generate new ideas and to do things that have never been done before.”

Aldrin’s ShareSpace Foundation is one of the sponsors of the annual gala, which raises money for Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics — or STEAM education — and Astronaut Scholarship Foundation scholarships.

Renowned Brazilian pop artist Romero Britto donated artwork from his “Buzz Aldrin Space Series” for the auction, which also included a behind-the-scenes tour of Virgin Galactic in California and autographed space memorabilia. Tickets for the event ranged from $750 to $2,500 per person.

​Aldrin lawsuit

Aldrin sued two of his adult children and a former business manager last month, accusing them of misusing his credit cards, transferring money from an account and slandering him by saying he has dementia. Weeks before that, Andrew and Jan Aldrin filed a petition claiming their 88-year-old father was suffering from memory loss, delusions, paranoia and confusion.

Andrew and Jan Aldrin and business manager Christina Korp are on the foundation’s board and attended the gala. Aldrin’s oldest son, James, isn’t involved in the legal fight.

Buzz Aldrin said in a statement that he didn’t attend “due to the present course of events related to my space initiatives, also current legal matters linked to the ShareSpace Foundation.”

“I formed ShareSpace Foundation in 1998 for the promotion of individual space voyagers,” Aldrin added. “The Foundation is, in my view, now being used to promote quite different objectives.”

Andrew Aldrin acknowledged his father’s absence during the gala.

“We’re sorry Dad can’t be here, I know some of you are disappointed,” Aldrin said. “Ultimately, what we’re about is creating the first generation of Martians.”
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