Science Week in Review: May 13, 2011
Herewith some noteworthy, interesting, or just plain quirky bits of global health and science news that caught my eye this week…
HIV Treatment as HIV Prevention: This was the biggest and most hopeful AIDS news in some time. Check out our interview on what the new study results could mean for Africa. And here’s a story we ran last year, from South Africa, that also explores the strategy of treating HIV to prevent the virus’s spread.
Obama’s Global Health Initiative: Early in his presidency, Barack Obama announced a new Global Health Initiative to combat disease in the developing world. Two years later, the effort appears disorganized, ill-defined, and lacking clear progress, according to this in-depth and welcome investigation by reporter John Donnelly for GlobalPost.
Conflict in Cote d’Ivoire Disrupts Polio Eradication Drive: Yet more bad news from a country in turmoil. Read this news report from IRIN, the UN’s source of humanitarian news.
WHO Considers Fate of Smallpox: And you thought that smallpox had been eradicated. Not quite. Nature looks at the debate over what to do with stored virus samples.
Angela Merkel Champions Green Energy: An unexpected political turn by the German chancellor is cheered by environmentalists. Read this fascinating story by Christian Schwägerl at Yale Environment 360.
UK Fungi Redraw Evolutionary Tree: It’s amazing how much work taxonomists have yet to do. As reported in Nature, a discovery in a British pond could upset scientists’ understanding of fungal evolution.
Bedbugs and Drug-resistant Bacteria: Two of my least favorite things team up against us. As reported by AP.
Ambassador for Clean Cookstoves: In case you were wondering why Julia Roberts graces this week-in-review post, the Hollywood star has been named global ambassador by the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, according to this U.S. State Department news release. Why appoint an Academy Award-winning actress to teach about the dangers of dirty cook stoves in the developing world? Because stars draw media attention, of course. and in my case the ploy worked! Her appointment also gives me an excuse to point you to Rhitu Chatterjee’s excellent story last year about efforts to clean up cook stoves in India. (The story was also featured on Science Podcast #80.)
Enjoy the weekend!
David Baron is the health & science editor at The World.
(Photo: flickr image by David Shankbone.)
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