Where Have All the Christians Gone?

The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history.

AP

More than a quarter-century after scientists discovered the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have finally shown that an experimental vaccine can block at least some infections, marking the first small but significant step toward eventual control of this lethal pandemic.

The benefits of the vaccine were modest, only a 31% reduction in the number of new infections. But coming on the heels of previous vaccine studies that either showed no benefit at all or actually increased the risk of contracting the disease, the study buoys the hopes of researchers who had nearly given on ever finding an effective way to block the spread of the virus.

The results were released overnight in Bangkok, Thailand, where the research was conducted by a team including Thai researchers, the U.S. Army and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“This is a historic day in the 26-year quest to develop an AIDS vaccine,” Dr. Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, who was not involved in the research, said in a statement.

“We now have evidence that it is possible to reduce the risk of HIV infection with a vaccine,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, in his own statement. “There is little doubt that this finding will energize and redirect the AIDS vaccine field as all of us begin the hard work to translate this landmark result into true public health benefit.”

The trial, which began in 2003, had been disparaged by many critics as a waste of time and money because each of the two vaccines used in it had been shown in individual trials to produce no benefit. But researchers speculated that using them together, with one vaccine priming the immune system and the second boosting that response, would be more effective, and their optimism about this “prime-boost” combination has been validated.

Experts said that it will be many more years before a vaccine is available for wider use, but the results indicate at last that such a vaccine may, indeed, be possible. “It gives me cautious optimism,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the study.

The primer in this combo is Alvac, made by Sanofi Pasteur, which uses a defanged canarypox virus to carry three synthetic HIV genes into the body. The boost comes from Aidsvax, originally made by VaxGen and now owned by the nonprofit group Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases. It contains a genetically engineered version of a protein from the HIV surface.

The study involved more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand who had no unusual exposure to the virus, just the normal everyday risk. Half received four priming doses of Alvac and two boost doses of Aidsvax over a six-month period, and half received placebo shots.

After three years of follow-up, new HIV infections were observed in 74 of the 8,198 people who received the placebo, but in only 51 of the 8,197 given the vaccine, a statistically significant 31% reduction.

To the researchers’ disappointment, however, the vaccine did not reduce levels of HIV activity in those who became infected after being vaccinated.

Full details of the study will be released next month at a conference in Paris.

The vaccine was made using strains of virus that circulate commonly in Thailand, so it is not clear whether it would have any benefit elsewhere in the world. The manufacturers have not said whether they will attempt to license their products in Thailand.

At least 33 million people worldwide are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, and 25 million have died, according to the World Health Organization. An estimated 7,500 are infected each day.

Aidsvax had failed in two large trials halted in 2003, showing no benefit to recipients. Another trial by Merck & Co. of a different vaccine was halted in 2007 when researchers found that the vaccine might increase the risk of contracting the virus.

Naples Construction

Often planning departments don’t want to refuse permissions for dwellings, their interest is in maintaining the area while preserving the environment. A delicate balance has to be struck between allowing people the freedom to live, and giving nature a chance.

We are as a society becoming more environmentally aware. It used to be something other people worried about while we threw out trash without thinking and drove our nine mile-per-gallon SUV to work and on the school run. Now we are recycling, buying hybrids, or more efficient cars and looking more to green energy as a solution.

This is a significant change for us, and while things like the Kyoto treaty become more and more strict about industrial and vehicle emissions, it is something that is going to have to gain momentum. We have held ourselves apart from the world as they progressed and we stayed behind. But, as we always do, we soon catch up.

So while we may want out dream home right in the middle of the everglades, it isn’t going to happen, but there are still plenty of tracts of land that offer just as much but with much less impact on the environment.

Greenfield sites aren’t always the most responsible option. We have much less undeveloped land than we used to, and while the Naples construction market is slow right now, it isn’t always going to be. Our environment is one of the reasons people like to live and visit. The beaches, the nature reserves, trails all provide a great atmosphere and we don’t want to spoil that.

Planning departments have to mind the environment for us, because however much we might love nature, if we wanted to build all over it, some of us would. So while some builders and citizens believe planning departments are there to refuse everything they see, they are actually there to protect us from ourselves. For many of us, the wider concerns of our surroundings go out the window if they get in the way of something we want. We have a tendency to become blinkered and somehow manage to justify our actions whatever they may be. This is why we have governments and bureaucracy, checks and balances against our innate ability to be selfish.

New home building will soon pick up and land will become a premium again. While there are many efforts to regenerate brown field sites, there will always be a demand for new building plots. Even in a country as big as our, land is still a finite commodity and it will run out some day.

So while it is tempting to vent anger and frustration at a planning department for refusing permissions, there is often a very good reason for doing so. Not always of course, everyone is only human after all, but most of the time.

So next time you drive into the country, remember that it is still there because people in power protect it from us.

Patrick Swayze was a heartthrob for millions after his roles in Ghost and Dirty Dancing brought him to the silver screen. His good looks and simmering performances endeared him to all, but he unfortunately died on Monday aged just 57.

His publicist informed fans and media alike that he died of pancreatic cancer after an almost two year battle.

Swayze’s physician, Dr George Fisher confirmed in March 2008 that the movie star had the disease. He released a statement Monday after the event.

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today, surrounded by family and friends.”

Swayze will always be remembered for his starring role as snake-hipped Johnny Castle in the 1987 blockbuster Dirty Dancing. The role that confirmed his place as the romantic lead of the nineties.

He was a trained dancer, who could also act, but wasn’t the first choice for the role. His performance went on to earn him award nominations and a place in the hearts, and bedroom walls of millions of girls around the world.

Despite his fame, the 57 year old actor avoided publicity where he could and preferred to live the quiet life on his ranch in California with his wife of 34 years Lisa. This attitude was displayed both at work and at home,

He once said: “It’s the cult movies that gave me a career for the last 30 years. It wouldn’t have been worth it if I had been stuck as the leading man or the dance guy.”

He was born Patrick Wayne Swayze in Houston Texas in 1952. Son of a choreographer and engineer. He was a natural at sports and actively participated in ice skating, acting as well as ballet. He went on to study gymnastics, then moved to the Harkness and Joffrey ballet school in New York in 1972.

His first professional dancing job was with Disney, where he played Prince Charming in Disney on Parade before going on to feature in the Broadway version of Grease.

His first movie role was as Ace Johnson in a roller skating movie called Skatetown USA in 1979. His rise to fame began when he secured a role in The Outsiders with Rob Lowe in 1983. This movie saw the birth of the brat pack, and also starred Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez and Matt Dillon.

Swayze then hit our TV screens in the excellent North and South which received critical acclaim, and went on to be one of the most successful TV mini-series of all time.

It wasn’t until 1987 that his career was well and truly launched as he arrived on our screens as the dance instructor Johnny Castle. This low budget movie was only envisaged for a short cinema run but became a global phenomenon that took everyone by surprise. He received a Golden Globe nomination and a number 3 single on the US Billboard Chart for the song “She’s Like The Wind” which he sang and featured in the movie.

Swayze will be sadly missed by family, friends and fans alike.

The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.

Researchers who carried out the study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, think the reason may be that men use up so much of their brain function or ‘cognitive resources’ trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.

The findings have implications for the performance of men who flirt with women in the workplace, or even exam results in mixed-sex schools.

Women, however, were not affected by chatting to a handsome man.

This may be simply because men are programmed by evolution to think more about mating opportunities.

Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived.

Researchers said it was as if he was so keen to make an impression he ‘temporarily absorbed most of his cognitive resources.’

To see if other men were affected in the same way, they recruited 40 male heterosexual students.

Each one performed a standard memory test where they had to observe a stream of letters and say, as fast as possible, if each one was the same as the one before last.

The volunteers then spent seven minutes chatting to male or female members of the research team before repeating the test.

The results showed men were slower and less accurate after trying to impress the women. The more they fancied them, the worse their score.

But when the task was repeated with a group of female volunteers, they did not get the same results. Memory scores stayed the same, whether they had chatted to a man or a woman.

In a report on their findings the researchers said: ‘We conclude men’s cognitive functioning may temporarily decline after an interaction with an attractive woman.’

Psychologist Dr George Fieldman, a member of the British Psychological Society, said the findings reflect the fact that men are programmed to think about ways to pass on their genes.

‘When a man meets a pretty woman, he is what we call ‘reproductively focused’.

‘But a woman also looks for signs of other attributes, such as wealth, youth and kindness. Just the look of the man would be unlikely to have the same effect.’