The Search for Elusive Holy Grail of HIV Vaccine…Continues

The quest for HIV vaccine has suffered yet another major setback. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) scrapped a U.S. human trial dubbed PAVE 100, to test a HIV vaccine, saying that more research was needed before the vaccine could be tested on humans.

Following the decision to halt the trial of HIV vaccine candidate MRKAd5 or V520, dubbed STEP last September, researchers were doubtful about the future of the PAVE 100 trial. V520 altered the immune system, facilitating infection, rather than providing immunity against the HIV and failed to reduce viral load of the patients in the STEP trial.

The experimental vaccine to be tested in the PAVE 100 trial would also have used an adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vector that is similar, though not identical, to the Ad5 vector used in the failed STEP trial.

However, the NIAID has not given up entirely on the PAVE 100 trial. It believes the vaccine is scientifically intriguing and sufficiently different from previously tested HIV vaccines. The NIAID is considering testing the experimental vaccine in a smaller, more focused clinical study. It will entertain a proposal for an alternative study with one specific goal: to determine if the vaccine regimen significantly lowers viral load.

With none of the clinical trials for HIV vaccine yielding positive results, some scientists and HIV research advocacy groups have been calling for the U.S government to suspend funds for testing existing experimental vaccines and re-allocate resources into effective, proven HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and treatment strategies.

The recent failures in HIV vaccine development clearly indicate that it still requires fundamental research to understand the basic biology of the AIDS virus and its effects on the human immune system.

Turbine Time

AMERICA must pursue alternative energy sources by making a huge investment in wind-power infrastructure.

The country could build enough wind farms to provide 20% of the nation's electricity by 2030. Achieving this goal is by building wind farms throughout the windy corridor from Texas to the Dakotas. It would cost $1.2 trillion to build and connect them to places where the power is most needed.

Although a staggering expenditure, it would free up American natural gas, which now generates 22% of the country's electricity, to be used for motor vehicles. If all Americans switch to natural gas vehicles, then the country could stop importing so much oil.

The industry would create jobs and revitalise rural America. In 1999, wind power capacity in Texas was just 180 megawatts. Today it leads the nation with almost 5,000. The economic impact will be $315m this year. Wind has brought more than 1,000 new jobs to the area.

This boomlet has made an impression on Texans. Wind power accounts for 3% of the state's electricity, compared with 1% nationwide. But the tax credit that has been driving its growth is about to expire, and there is the question of the creaking grid. The state is mulling a plan that would enable the transmission of 17,000 additional megawatts at a cost of $6.4 billion.

Building wind power capacity will be a difficult task, but there is an emerging agreement in Texas that it is worth the trouble.

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Dara Torres, Demystified

By Amanda Schaffer

At age 41, Olympian Dara Torres swims faster than she did 20 years ago. Her middle-age miracle recognition also comes with the suspicion that she is involved with drugs. She may not have failed a drug test and has volunteered for extra testing, but that can't prove definitively that she is clean because of the limitations of the tests.

Torres herself has talked of two "secrets" to her success. First, she takes amino acid supplements developed by German swimmer Mark Warnecke. Second, Torres says she relies on a training technique called "resistance stretching." The stretching and the supplements probably help her performance, but neither is likely to work in the ways—or to the extent—claimed.

Torres touted Warnecke's product- amino acid supplements- saying that it helped her gain muscle and helped with a speedy recovery. On his Website, Warnecke does not list all the ingredients and their proportions. Among other amino acids mentioned, he does name arginine, which helps increase blood circulation, which "significantly reduces regeneration time" of muscles.

A journal of sports nutrition points out that during resistance exercise—when muscles contract against external pressure—a small net breakdown in muscle takes place. Quick replenishment with amino acids can boost protein synthesis, helping to increase muscle repair and growth. The essential amino acids, which the body can't synthesize on its own, appear to play a major role in stimulating this process.

But most of the amino acids mentioned by Warnecke are not in the essential group. It's not clear why taking his supplements would improve muscle repair or boost muscle mass and strength. Meanwhile, consuming protein may be just as effective as taking amino acids, and combining either amino acids or protein with carbs is probably even better for boosting muscle protein synthesis. All in all, amino acid supplements sound at best like a pretty minor factor in Torres' success.

The basic idea to her second secret, resistance stretching is to contract a muscle while lengthening or stretching it. Two trainers "mash" or massage her body with their feet, then begin a series of resistance stretches that look like "a cross between a yoga class, a massage, and a Cirque du Soleil performance," as written in the New York Times Magazine. Over the course of two weeks, in 1999, it transformed Torres "from being an alternate on the relay team to the fastest swimmer in America."

In combination with other training, Torres' approach is likely to have some benefits. Mainly, stretching muscles against resistance may boost their strength through a greater range of motion. That is, it may allow people to generate more force with a muscle that's in a lengthened position. Some evidence also suggests that stretching muscles against resistance may help prevent injuries or facilitate recovery from them.

But there are trade-offs. Making a muscle stronger when it's in a lengthened position may mean making it weaker when it's in a shortened one. In addition, it's not necessarily good for swimmers to increase their range of motion too much, especially in their shoulders. The bottom line is that resistance stretching may improve a swimmer's performance. But as Torres' trainer concedes, there are currently no controlled studies that demonstrate this, and it's hard to see how this technique could really be her record-breaking bullet.

The mystery is not why Torres might try resistance stretching. It's why she promotes it to reporters and advertises it in a video, despite not getting paid to appear in it. Perhaps Torres simply wanted to share about a technique she believes is helping her. But the more she talks about her acclaimed secrets to success, the more one wonders about the secrets she may be hiding.

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F1: Coulthard quits

SILVERSTONE: David Coulthard announced at his home race on Thursday, July 3 that this year will be his last season competing in Formula One.

Coulthard stated his retirement ahead of the British Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing driver said, "I would like to announce today my decision to retire from racing in formula one at the end of this season. I will remain actively involved in the sport as a consultant to Red Bull Racing focusing on testing and development of the cars."

At 37, the oldest driver said his decision to retire "was taken earlier in the year and is based on a desire to stop while I am still competitive and enjoying the immense challenge that grand prix driving represents. I also have the desire to look for new challenges within the sport.

The Scot made his debut at the Spanish Grand Prix with Williams in 1994. He joined Mclaren two years later.

He has won 13 grands prix to date. The last was five years ago in Australia with McLaren. Click here to see more of Coulthard's career.

Just Friends?

Can a Platonic Relationship Turn Passionate? And if It Could, Would You Want It To?
By Julia Feldmeier

My best guy friend is sitting across from me as I type this, playing footsie with me under the table. We've been friends for 10 years, since college, and we've grown closer with age. We can talk for hours about things big and small; we can also sit comfortably in silence. He makes me laugh, always, but has sincere words when I need a lift.

It's the perfect relationship. Except, of course, for when we split ways and I go home, try to mentally decode the meaning of footsie and then turn to my roommate or my sister or anyone who'll listen and say, "UGH! WE'RE SO PERFECT TOGETHER, WHY AREN'T WE DATING?!" And other sane things like that.

Pop culture abounds with examples of friends who've navigated (or attempted to navigate) the path to romance. Think "Friends," in which Monica and Chandler get together. And "Little Women," when Laurie longs for childhood pal Jo March. Or, most famously, "When Harry Met Sally . . .," which explores the muddy waters of sexual tension to determine if, in fact, men and women can be friends.

-The lead is an anecdote about the writer and her best guy friend. At first, one might think the article is about the writer.

So let's start with that controversial question: Can men and women be friends? I mean, can they really be just friends? Okay, yeah. Yes. And yet:

- The nut graph clearly states what the story is about.

"All friendships, even same-sex ones, have ambiguous and changing boundaries," says Linda Sapadin, a clinical psychologist and author of "Now I Get It! Totally Sensational Advice for Living and Loving" (Outskirts Press, 2006). "You may think somebody's a best friend, and they just consider you a casual friend. How it's perceived is not always the same."

In other words: Your perspective can shift. Suddenly you see a friend as desirable, but he or she still sees you as only a friend. Which leaves you with two choices, Sapadin says: You can try to change it to a romantic relationship. Or you can learn to live with it so that there's flirtatious banter -- footsie, anyone? -- but nothing else.

-The background of the situation.

It's sexual attraction without acting on it. And the primary reason many of us don't act is fear: the worry that if our friend rebuffs us or the move from platonic to romantic fails, the friendship is irrecoverable.

- The cause.

Such was the outcome for Amy Ewen. She and her co-worker Peter were close friends -- the kind who prompt others to say, "Oh, you guys should be dating." But they never did until just before Peter left to spend a year traveling in Asia, when they enjoyed a whirlwind romance. The day after Peter departed, he sent Ewen a dozen roses.

"I was so happy, but it was really bittersweet because he was leaving," Ewen says. Her expectations were realistic, she says (she wasn't expecting them to stay together long distance), but they split with the assumption that there would be something on the other side: a continuation of their friendship.

Ewen, inspired by Peter, left her job to travel, too. When she returned after five months in New Zealand, where she'd met someone else, Peter was back as well, and she wanted to reconnect with him as a friend. He never returned her phone calls.

When she finally ran into him one evening in Adams Morgan, he was standoffish. He shook her hand as though they were business acquaintances and then blurted out that he wasn't in love with her.

"I was remembering how things were when we were good friends," Ewen says. "He thought I was thinking about being his girlfriend. It's sort of a shame, because we got along so well."

It is a shame, right? That things can't just go back to the way they were. But there's a comfort to friendship that often gets destroyed when romantic feelings are raised, an awkwardness that accompanies the transition into, and out of, these feelings.

- The impact.

"It feels very uncomfortable when somebody likes you more than you like them," says Ellen Sue Stern, a relationship expert and author of numerous advice books. Hence, she says, making the transition is "always a risk. You should be really sure you want to take that risk before you make that move."

* * *

Another quirk of dating a friend is that you know them well -- the opposite of romances in fairy tales. This prince, he's not a stranger. As for Cinderella? Forget the glass slipper. You've watched her clip her toenails.

Kathy Werking, author of "We're Just Good Friends: Women and Men in Nonromantic Relationships" (Guilford Press, 1997), interviewed dozens of opposite-sex friends when researching her book. Many reported that, when looking for a romantic partner, they sought someone with an air of mystery.

-Action of contrary forces.

"There's a lot of fantasy involved when we meet someone," Werking says. "We create a fantasy about what our lives will be together and what this person is all about. It's not as exciting to be around a person who knows you thoroughly."

When you're single and meet someone new, you size them up to determine whether they're datable.

"At a certain point in life, you already have your friends," says Greg Behrendt, author of "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys" (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2004). "So you're not looking for friends. You're generally looking for something more serious."

-The scope.

Call it a superficial calculation, but it's nonetheless deliberate. Friend romance, by contrast, seems almost Freudian.

Take Lynne and Kwame DeRoché, for instance. The Herndon couple, who celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary in April, say that when they met, they never considered each other as anything but a buddy. An office confidante.

Then came the slip. They were talking on the phone one weekend, planning to meet up that evening, when Lynne concluded the call by saying, "Okay, love ya. Bye."

Love ya?

Kwame didn't skip a beat. "Love you, too. Bye."

Neither acted on those words until a happy hour three months later when, fueled by booze and perhaps pent-up emotion, Lynne kissed him. That act wasn't so much a matter of crossing the boundary between friendship and romance; it was more a matter of erasing it.

"Everything that had happened before that was us dating," Kwame says. "We'd basically been dating for six months and didn't know it."

* * *

Alcohol, of course, can be a powerful agent when it comes to guiding friendships into sexual encounters. But unless both parties are ready to make the mental switch, the romance ends with the hangover.

Falls Church residents Melissa and Rob Floyd were friends for three years in the most platonic sense. She used his washer and dryer; he cooked for her; she cut his hair. He had a girlfriend, and she thought of him as nothing more than a good friend.

By 1998, both were single. Melissa was living abroad but returned home to celebrate New Year's Eve, and arranged for herself and Rob to stay overnight at the party house. Cut to the scene with Melissa standing at the top of the stairs, open bottle of champagne in hand, saying, "Well, we can't let this go to waste," before turning to head toward the bedroom, with Rob following. (Such is his memory of the event, at least.)

This is the Hollywood part where we edit in fireworks and mood music. And yet, nothing.

Turns out, when it comes to friendship-turned-romance, timing and context are key.

"Generally, sparks happen when they're supposed to," Behrendt says. "Can you come back and meet somebody and they're in a different place? Sure. But now you've met a different person."

For Melissa and Rob, the timing wasn't right until a few months later. She was still living abroad and he often traveled overseas for work, so they decided to meet in Turkey for a vacation.

There, driving down hairpin roads rimmed with goats and donkeys, "we were essentially completely alone, completely relaxed," Rob says. "It environmentally allowed us to realize and think about what we meant to each other and what a life together could be."

"I like to think I grew up in that heartbeat," Melissa says of that trip. "He was a really good friend and someone who probably knew me better than almost anyone at that time. I think I just realized that's what I wanted: I wanted that person who knew me so well and loved me because of that."

"Plus," she says, "he's cute."

* * *

The right timing often is paired with the maturity to understand the difference between what makes friends compatible and what makes romantic partners compatible. When Melissa and Rob reconvened after Turkey, each came armed with a list of things to discuss, both small (her cat, his goatee) and big (did they want kids, and where would they live?).

These kinds of talks, so pragmatic and seemingly unromantic, are imperative to saving a relationship.

"The friend definition is very different from how we define our romantic relationships," Werking says. "We have different expectations. Flaws that are okay in a friendship may not be okay in a romantic relationship."

But if the flaws are benign and the spark is there, well, that's a great place to be. After all, Stern says, "the healthiest relationships are those that are maximum safety and maximum passion." Friendship: safety. Romance: passion.

-The future.

Which brings me back to my footsie friend. Passion -- as much as I like to think it's there, hidden in his subconscious -- is missing.

There was a short period after a drunken confession of my feelings when it seemed as though he was thinking about it, this notion of us. He was flirtier, looking at me differently. I looked at him differently, too -- in a way that made me freak out. Was this seriously someone I could see myself being intimate with?

And then things snapped back to normal, back to being really good friends, with me thinking, still, that we'd make the perfect couple. Perhaps that's just the nature of our friendship, the unalterable dynamic between us.

Anyway, he's dating someone now and seems happy, so as his friend, I'm okay with that. Besides, I've got someone new to like. He's a great guy -- and I know that because, alas, we're friends.

-The conclusion is a bit too long, but it ties with the lead.

- Taken from washingtonpost.com, the story is an explanatory piece, as in explains if two people of the opposite sex can mantain a platonic relationship.

Brothers for Life

By MELENA RYZIK

JOSH PECK had been missing his crew. On television, the actor, 21, usually rolls with Drake Bell, his co-star on the popular Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh.” (Mr. Peck’s MySpace page asserts that they are friends in real life.) In his new movie, “The Wackness,” Mr. Peck plays a loner who deals pot to his therapist, Ben Kingsley.

-That was the lead, which was about his roles in his TV series and his new movie. The article does not focus on his career, although it is mentioned later.


But in his life off screen, Mr. Peck, a native New Yorker, hangs with the same boys he did in high school. On a recent trip from Los Angeles, where he now lives, Mr. Peck picked up Henry Glovinsky, 21, and Cameron Bowen, 19.

-This first sentence in the above paragraph tells what the story is about in one sentence. That was the nut graph.


“If it weren’t for the sex,” Mr. Peck said, “they could be my life partners.”

O.K., he was probably exaggerating a bit about the bromance. The guys know one another from the Professional Performing Arts School.

“It’s like the ghetto version of LaGuardia High School,” Mr. Peck said, referring to the institution immortalized by “Fame.”

“We had gangs,” Mr. Bowen added. “But it was more like the Sharks and the Jets. We used jazz hands.”

They wasted no time hitting their old haunts, like Washington Square Park, where they got taken in chess, and the New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe restaurant in Chinatown, where another friend, who speaks Cantonese, had introduced them to the soup dumplings. Mr. Peck sent him a text message to be on call to help with the menu, but they managed to order five sets of soup dumplings on their own.

“Awesome, we circumvented Jeremy,” Mr. Peck said. “He’s going to be so proud of us.”

In charisma, energy and speech, Mr. Peck seems like a quintessential overgrown New York City kid. He was raised by a single mother — his moms, as he inevitably refers to her — in Hell’s Kitchen, “right next to Mr. Biggs with the chicken wings and the dope karaoke,” he said. By middle school, he was doing stand-up at clubs, but couldn’t parlay his husky charm into television ads. “They didn’t want chubby little kids to do commercials for Oreos,” he said. His role on “Drake & Josh,” about stepbrothers, came at 15; now it’s mostly his voice that’s husky. In “The Wackness” (opening July 3), which is set in New York in 1994 and which received an audience award this year at Sundance, he has his first semi-nude scene.

- That paragraph was about the guy's background.


But back to the bros.

“You were huge into Pokémon,” Mr. Peck said to Mr. Bowen. “One of my first memories of meeting Cameron was when he showed me his extensive Pokémon collection.”

“I was like a smoker, buying two packs a day,” Mr. Bowen said. They argued about their geek cred.

“It must be a generational divide,” Mr. Peck told Mr. Bowen, “that you like ‘Lord of the Rings’ and we like ‘Star Wars.’ ”

After dinner, they walked to Soho Billiards for a few games.

“This is going to be nail-biting,” Mr. Glovinsky said.

“As long as one of us beats Cameron,” Mr. Peck replied.

Mr. Glovinsky: “God forbid, a ‘Lord of the Rings’ fan.”

Mr. Peck: “Come on, let’s do this for Mordor.”

Mr. Glovinsky beat them both. “How do we make it cool that I just lost?” Mr. Peck said.

-That was all the main body.

-Abrupt ending, there is no conclusion. I didn't expect the story to end just like that.

I had a hard time finding the scope of the issue, and it didn't say the cause either. The impact are on him and his two friends, but it doesn't elaborate on how they are affected. There are no action of the contrary forces and it doesn't say anything about the future.

This is a narrative piece, it tells about Josh Peck and his relationship with his friends. I think the eassy is too short, the dialogue doesn't really add information, although it does add colour to the article.