Progressive Wednesday

And end to AIDS might be on the horizon.

According to a recent article posted on the website for Channel 11 out of Atlanta, there might be some very strong hope for the future of an AIDS vaccine:

The world could have a new vaccine designed to kill the AIDS virus in as little as three to four years according to an Atlanta-based group working on the vaccine.

It is a scientific advance that could save tens of millions of lives, and it is being developed on the campus of Emory University.

I’m a bit confused about how this vaccine works, but you need to bear in mind that I really have no idea how a smoke detector, my microwave, or aspirin works. I don’t even know how the next tissue pops up out of a box of Klennex when you grab one to blow your nose.

But apparently, the vaccine employs a “decoy virus” which contains minuscule amounts of HIV, amounts so small no one would actually get AIDS from the injection. This sets up “memory cells,” which would attack the actual virus should you become exposed. In a scientific nutshell:

The vaccine works using a one-two pharmaceutical punch to prime the body then kill the virus.

“It raises both antibodies that can block the virus and it raises white blood cells called t cells that can kill the virus infected cells,– said [Dr. Harriet Robinson, Ph. D., of the Emory Vaccine Center].

I hate to build up false hope, but steps like this on a small level (according to the article the lab where this powerful work is getting done is smaller than my garage), where progress, at times surprisingly, seems to be made.

How important could this next step in defending and treating AIDS be? Well, according to ADVERT, an international AIDS charity, “the UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update [estimates] around 37.2 million adults and 2.3 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2006.” Combined that would be like every single person in California having HIV. Or everyone in Canada and New Zeland put together. Or all of Spain.

Let’s hope, and pray, and hope some more that there’s an end in sight.

To keep yourself informed about HIV and AIDS, just click the red ribbon. Remember, friends, knowledge is progress.

Planet Earth as it’s never been seen

I’m not in the habit of promoting television shows for free, or at all for that matter. Nine times out of ten there is something to do that would be a better use of one’s time than sitting in front of the electronic pendulum watching some mindless blather. But, of course, not all programming falls into this category. So I’m going to against my usual standards and recommend that you watch Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel.

Planet Earth is an eleven-part series shot with state-of-the-art equipment that took over five years to produce. It covers all things “earth”: from mountains to the ocean floor; from 6-foot-long salamanders to snow-dwelling camels; with unique camera shot from outer space to ocean trenches. In their own words, they show:

Never-before-seen animal behaviors, startling views of locations captured by cameras for the first time, and unprecedented high-definition production techniques.

It sounds like a cheesy and obvious tagline, and I suppose it is. Still, it doesn’t even begin to describe the unique views, angles and picture clarity presented in this series. Okay, I’m starting to sound like an infomercial. See for yourself. Here are a couple of clips from the series. They’re not in high definition but you can get a good idea of the quality of the cinematography and how captivating the program is.

This first clip is the first time a snow leopard was ever caught on film. And they were even able to catch it in the act of hunting.

This one is my personal favorite shot. Have you ever seen a great white shark in an inverted leap 20 feet out of the water to catch a fur seal? The high-speed cameras allow the one-second-long attack to be slowed down to 47 seconds, in case you wanted to count the teeth. (Be patient. The most impressive shark attack comes about halfway through the clip, not that the shots before it aren’t breathtaking.)

You�ll have to check your local listings for times. It can be found on the Discovery Channel or Discovery HD Theater. If you have the capability, watch it in HD. If you don’t, watch it anyway. Make sure your bladder is empty when you sit down; you won’t want to get up until it’s over. If you decide you can’t watch it enough, you can purchase the DVD here. It comes in standard, Blu-Ray, and HDDVD formats.

They’ve also got a great website that does the program quality its due justice. Check it out and then meander on over their partner’s website, The Nature Conservancy, to find out what you can do for our beautiful planet Earth.

“Country Fresh– renewable energy

Renewable energy. We've talked about it before, many times. Biodiesel, solar power, wind power, hydropower, geothermal power, wave power, ethanol, flower power– ¦ okay, maybe not the last one, but you get the gist. There is enormous potential for one or more of these to help solve our political, economic, and climate crisis born from the burning of fossil fuels.

These innovations are children of true “outside-the-box– scientific thinking, real progressive thought. But it is important not to stop at these. We can't know any possible long-term shortcomings or negative side effects that these new energy sources might have, so we must continue to find and develop cheaper, safer, more efficient, and cleaner energy sources than even these.

And we are. According to LiveScience.com:

Researchers say they have successfully generated electricity from heat by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles, a finding that could yield cheap refrigerators, not to mention new, more efficient energy sources in general.

Now, I'm no scientist; my wife is the atom-splitter (and dog neuterer) in our family. So, I won't try to paraphrase. You can read the whole article here.

The same journal reports that electricity has also been generated using cow manure and stomach juices.

Microbes living in the rumen chamber of a cow's stomach break down cellulose, a tough carbohydrate produced by plants, specifically in the grass cows munch on.

This process helps cows digest their meals, but it also releases electrons which scientists can harness for use in a battery. They used about a liter of microbe-rich rumen fluid to produce 600 millivolts of electricity, about half the voltage needed to run one rechargeable AA battery.

It doesn't seem like much, and maybe it isn't. But finding a good way to convert the excessive waste produced by huge corporate farms is as important as creating that small amount of energy. And continuing to find new and better ways to make the world spin is what being a progressive is all about.

The Grandeur of Earth Day

Problem:

Earth Day is April 22, and recognizing and reacting to this day couldn't be more important. Why? Because the planet, as we know it, is dying, its heart is slowly stopping, and we needn't look farther than a mirror to see who's to blame.

But we're powerful. We're creative and resourceful and brilliant: lest we forget, we landed on the moon, we invent and reinvent language, we split the atom, we adopt forgotten children as our own. Most importantly, we are, at our core, good. And like metaphoric doctors with a metaphoric defibrillator, it's shocking how quickly we can bring the planet back to life.

.

Make Progress:

Eventually, the bugs — blasted things that they are — are going to take over the planet. Our species is going to cease being. At Progressive Wednesday, we'd like to put that headstone for humanity off for as long as possible.

Much like our bodies, which regulate themselves to maintain homeostasis, the planet is one giant organism. Rain, bees, and rabbits help plants grow and reproduce. The plants help oxygenate the air, reduce greenhouse gases, and help protect glaciers and icecaps, the largest reservoirs of freshwater on the planet. Rivers thrive, so the fish thrive, so the bears thrive. Right now in a city near you, cats are killing rats. And the rats– ¦ well, we've got no idea what they do except keep alleys company. Let's just say that the interconnectivity of all species of life is a bit mind-boggling and that biodiversity lies at the core of this connectivity. We think it's safe to say humans don't even completely understand its importance.

To liberally quote the 19th Century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

.

[But] all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

.

And for all this, nature is never spent.

Nature is never spent. There's hope, my peeps. And because at our best we're stewards of the environment, it's time to right this ship of ours a bit. That's how we celebrate Earth Day around these here parts. That's how we celebrate our planet's unfathomable grandeur: we protect it.

• Earth
• Animals
• Air
• Water
• Plants

The Grandeur of Earth Day: Animals

Animals:

Okay, my pretties. This one is easy as making macaroni and cheese. (Mmm– ¦ mac and cheese– ¦.)

But first, let me say this: in my lifetime, 15 species of animals have gone extinct.

According to the World Conservation Union, another 15,589 are at risk of extinction. But are we to blame? Chew on this one: “[over the] past 400 years [we] have seen 89 mammalian extinctions, almost 45 times the predicted rate, and another 169 mammal species are listed as critically endangered.– I believe that falls under the category of “Yes.–

So, on Tuesday, we told you about Good Search, the search engine fully powered by Yahoo, which donates half of the profits from ad revenue to the charity of your choice. So, this week, we're asking that you only use Good Search to crawl the web, and select the WWF (the World Wildlife Foundation) as the charity. If nothing else, there's this to love about the WWF — they forced the World Wrestling Federation to change their name to the WWE! What's not to love?

But you want the skinny? It goes like this: the 45-year-old, non-political, global, independent, and multicultural World Wildlife Foundation strives to conserve and protect the planet's biodiversity, promote cutting our oodles of pollution, and make sure that we use our natural resources in a sustainable fashion. How? Well, they “are currently funding around 2,000 conservation projects and employ almost 4,000 people across the planet.– And they work closely with the locals in every area where a project is focused.

Their main goal is lofty and lovely: “To stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.–

Harmony you say? Well, if you promise to use Good Search to raise some cabbage to help the WWF protect our animals — pandas to pachyderms — we'll let you listen to two lovely tunes sung and strummed by lovely folks. (Okay, we'll let you anyway, but use Good Search. Cool? Cool.)

“Train From Kansas City” by Neko Case http://media.anti.com/neko_case/the_tigers_have_spoken/Train_From_Kansas_City.mp3

“The Dark Don't Hide It” by Magnolia Electric Co. http://www.scjag.com/mp3/sc/darkdonthideit.mp3

God willing, we're nearing the end of a dark, dark tunnel.

According to a recent article posted on the website for Channel 11 out of Atlanta, there might be some very strong hope for the future of an AIDS vaccine:

The world could have a new vaccine designed to kill the AIDS virus in as little as three to four years according to an Atlanta-based group working on the vaccine.

It is a scientific advance that could save tens of millions of lives, and it is being developed on the campus of Emory University.

I’m a bit confused about how this vaccine works, but you need to bear in mind that I really have no idea how a smoke detector, my microwave, or aspirin works. I don’t even know how the next tissue pops up out of a box of Klennex when you grab one to blow your nose.

But apparently, the vaccine employs a “decoy virus” which contains minuscule amounts of HIV, amounts so small no one would actually get AIDS from the injection. This sets up “memory cells,” which would attack the actual virus should you become exposed. In a scientific nutshell:

The vaccine works using a one-two pharmaceutical punch to prime the body then kill the virus.

“It raises both antibodies that can block the virus and it raises white blood cells called t cells that can kill the virus infected cells,– said [Dr. Harriet Robinson, Ph. D., of the Emory Vaccine Center].

I hate to build up false hope, but steps like this on a small level (according to the article the lab where this powerful work is getting done is smaller than my garage), where progress, at times surprisingly, seems to be made.

How important could this next step in defending and treating AIDS be? Well, according to ADVERT, an international AIDS charity, “the UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update [estimates] around 37.2 million adults and 2.3 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2006.” Combined that would be like every single person in California having HIV. Or everyone in Canada and New Zeland put together. Or all of Spain.

Let’s hope, and pray, and hope some more that there’s an end in sight.

To keep yourself informed about HIV and AIDS, just click the red ribbon. Remember, friends, knowledge is progress.

Welcome back large-billed reed-warbler. We missed ye.

Let’s rack this one up as “Pretty Cool Nature News”:

A bird whose discovery in India in 1867 was also the last recorded sighting of the species has been found again in Thailand, a conservation group said Tuesday.

The large-billed reed-warbler was found anew at a wastewater treatment plant on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand.

I gotta say, I think it’s kind of appropriate that the bird no one thought existed was discovered anew at a place where water goes, not to die, but to, well, to live again. (To see a photo of the bird, click this sentence.)

According to Stuart Butchart of Birdlife International:

Almost nothing is known about this mysterious bird. The Indian specimen has short, round wings and we speculated it is resident or short-distance migrant, so its appearance in Thailand is very surprising. A priority now is to find out where the Large-billed Reed-warbler's main population lives, whether it is threatened, and if so, how these threats can be addressed.

To that, we say “Here, here!” and a hearty “Huzzah!” The natural world is endlessly surprising, fascinating, glorious to a fault. We are, at our best, true stewards of the environment, intellectually curious and emotionally committed to protection. Being aware of good stuff like this and passing the word along are a one-two punch of the best things we, as environmental laypeople, can do.

On a somewhat unrelated note, check out this video of a bird (in its natural environment) moonwalking. I kid you not.