Well, as you know by now, I'm kind of nerd for the medical/scientific stuff, and today's post will be no different. Before you click on the video below, let me explain to you what it is you're seeing. The green cell is a molecular clone of infectious HIV, with a protein encoded into its makeup that glows green under blue light. What's the significance? This is the first time scientists have actually been able to see how it is that HIV transfers itself from cell to cell. Previously it was thought that it was just a free transfer, HIV floating willy-nilly through the bloodstream and attaching on to poor unsuspecting T-Cells. In fact, it seems the main method is that the HIV infected cells create a bridge called a "virological synapse" to basically inject the host cell with the virus. Here's what it looks like:

So what does this mean for HIV/AIDS research? It means that now scientists can look at medications or vaccines that prevent the formation of these synapses in the first place, rendering the virus inert, or possibly this provides a starting point to research what happens once the virus has been introduced to the host cell via the virological synapse.

So, I'm a big fan of digg.com. It's the site I go to when I'm bored on the internet, and basically I let people all over the world do my surfing for me, and just tell me what to look at. It's great... I make my lazy time in itself lazier. But it also kind of gives you a decent gauge on what it is exactly that other people out there in the world are seeing and reading, and every so often something gay pops up. Those are always my favorites. Around the time of Prop 8, Digg was aglow with all kinds of pro-gay high-dig articles and links and editorials. It was amazing... it looked like the new generation was on our side. Even afterward, articles flew about the Mormon church and its tax-exempt status, or what kind of fantastic things the Pope had to say about homosexuals (No joke, he said gays were like the rainforest), but recently the LGBT movement on Digg has slowed, because as with all things on the internet, fads fade. Every so often though, some brave soul finds something digg-worthy, and it makes it to the front page... like a flare gun of civil rights telling people we're still here, we're still queer, and dammit we're not going away.