Nobel Prize awarded for AIDS, cervical cancer research

Two French researchers who discovered the human AIDS virus and a German scientist who showed that human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer were awarded Monday the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The decision in effect ends the long-running dispute between France’s Luc Montagnier and America’s Robert Gallo, concluding that Montagnier and his colleague Francoise Barre-Sinoussi were the discoverers of the virus. More than 33 million people worldwide are HIV carriers. … Montagnier said he wished that Gallo had shared in the award. “It is certain that he deserved this as much as us two,” he told the Associated Press.

Zur Hausen’s work was far less controversial, although his proposal that human papilloma virus, known as HPV, causes cervical cancer was initially disparaged.

But he reasoned that if the virus played such a role, its genes would be incorporated into those of tumor cells, and he spent more than a decade looking for evidence. His work was complicated by the fact that only segments of the virus made it into the tumor DNA.

After a decade of searching, in 1984 he found that one strain, called HPV-16, was in some tumors. The following year, he showed that a second strain, HPV-18, was in others. He then cloned the two viruses and made them available to other researchers.

Those two strains are now known to cause an estimated 70% of all cases of cervical cancer, and vaccines against them, Gardasil and Cervarix, are now beginning to play a crucial role in preventing the disease. – latimes

1932 Nov. 30. Raymond Royal Rife isolates the filtrable virus of carcinoma. Using a super microscope he designed, he sees the cancer causing virus he called BX incorporate itself into cancer cells. He finds a way to kill the virus after many years. He cures cancer. The night before he is to reveal this to the world, his lab burns down, his notes disappear and he is scorned, discredited. There is a murder. People he knew claim to never have known him. Fifty years later, essentially the same claim is made: Cancer is caused by a virus. It is scorned at first.

2001 Dec. 28. Xeno hears about Rife,  writes about him on Xenophilia.com

2008 Oct. 7: A Nobel prize, 76 years after Rife, will be given to Zur Hausen who discovered what Rife did: A virus causes cancer.  Zur Hausen’s virus only causes one type of cancer, cervical cancer. Conspiracy theorists claim that curing all cancers would mess up profits for powerful companies too much and would also cause more overpopulation.

Listen to Rife here.

Iran creates international panic after claiming US plane violated airspace

An Iranian news agency sparked fears of an international standoff and left the Pentagon scrambling to identify its planes today after it reported that a US jet had strayed into its territory and been forced to land.

The semi-official Fars News Agency this afternoon said that five US military officials and three civilians were interrogated at an unnamed Iranian airport after accidentally straying into the Islamic Republic’s airspace.

They were released after it was established that the plane had not entered the territory intentionally, the agency said, adding that it did not know when the incident had happened.

After hastily investigating the claims, however, the Pentagon poured scorn on them.

The US said that all of its planes in the Middle East had been identified and none had recently been missing or involved in any incident.

“According to the combined air operations centre, all our aircraft are accounted for and we have no reports of any aircraft landing in Iran,” US Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder said.

As the story unfolded, a senior Iranian military official told Iranian state television’s Arabic-language channel Al-Alam that what was said to be a military jet was, in fact, a private Hungarian business aircraft and that no Americans were on board. It added that the incident dated back to September 30.

“The airplane is now being confirmed as a light transport plane with no Americans onboard,” US military spokesman Lieutenant David Russell said. – times

Don’t assume that everyone is dumb just because they seem to be. One wild guess is that the US just turned on some new communications system and this was Iran’s intelligence investigation of how the US knows where all of its military jets are. We supposedly did flyovers to find out how good their radar is, for example, (see this.).  There is a new communications system that may be coming on line about now according to a quick google search.

… As in Milstar, the AEHF System crosslinks will enhance routing and reduce vulnerability to terrestrial disruption. The new crosslinks will operate at several times the current Milstar data rate.

By 2010, about 2500 terminals are expected in the protected communications inventory for the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marines. Portable, mobile, and fixed terminals with low, medium, and high data rates will support ground units, aircraft, surface ships, and submarines.” -aero

“X-Files” star David Duchovny leaves sex rehab

Actor David Duchovny, who plays a womanizing novelist on the cable television series “Californication,” has completed a rehabilitation program for sex addiction, his attorney said on Monday. Duchovny, former star of the “X-Files” films and TV series, is married to actress Tea Leoni and they have two children. The actor’s admission to a rehab facility for treatment of sex addiction was publicly revealed by his attorney, Stanton “Larry” Stein, in late August. In a statement on Monday, Stanton said Duchovny “has successfully completed rehabilitation.”

“He is out and will very soon begin work on his new movie,” Stanton said. – reuters

I want to believe he is cured.