Life

Expectations.

Rarely is any word loaded with such painful possibilities.

What is it, that compels this human animal? Why are we so eager for hope? Why are we driven to expect better than the past?

Perhaps the thing more fragile than human life, is the expectations we make of it. To expect kindness; to be treated with respect and dignity. To be able to live your life in peace and security. To expect a better future. To realise childhood dreams. Is that not childish?

When we hurt, why do we think we have the market cornered on human suffering? Why are we so eager to cut ourselves off from others? What do we expect would happen? Why does fear drive us so much? What are we so afraid of? Why are we so afraid to accept ourselves?

Why do we hurt ourselves so much?

Expectations.

Rarely is any word loaded with such painful possibilities.

One old Chinese woman... and Paris Hilton

Some time back the solitudinarian talked about the cruelty humans inflict on each other. Here is the flipside.

What is one man's cruelty is another man's necessity. Depending on where you stand, this may seem incredibly cruel, or incredibly heartbreaking. So which is it? Comment away.

Here's my opinion, for what it's worth. Whatever we make of this or any other case, we lead privileged lives (if you're reading this, then you're already better off than most people) and despite our bleeding hearts, we cannot grab the true magnitude of the lives of these people; regardless of whether they end up as the victim or the perp.

I think it's incredibly sad that more column space will be devoted to Paris Hilton's Hellenic obsession (come on guys, that woman has only ONE pose, for crying out loud). That woman probably doesn't know Greece is spelt differently from the musical.

"Two Thumbs Up!!" : Annie Proulx

Here is a review written by Annie Proulx. 'nuf said.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Virus

I've been closely following the case of Andrew Stimpton, the British man who claims to have been cleared of the HIV virus.

While the claims have yet to be backed up with irrefutable scientific proof, if it indeed is true, it would be an unprecedented event. Till date, there has been no proven case of spontaneous clearance of the virus. As of right now, there just isn't enough evidence either way.

Last week the NHS went on record to say that Andrew probably never had HIV in the first place, and he was the unfortunate victim of a testing error.

Scientists have reason to be sceptical about Andrew, and I'll outline why this is the case.

In August 2002, Andrew complained of flu like symptoms and general malaise, and his doctor recommended a HIV test. At that point, Andrew had been engaging in protected sex with his HIV+ve partner. The test came back ambiguous, and the doc recommended another test after a few months. This test came back positive.

Andrew gave up using protection during sex with his partner, and received no treatment. After 14 months, another, more sensitive HIV test, came back negative. Three subsequent tests came back negative as well. Andrew decided to sue the hospital for their earlier false positive test, but DNA testing of his prior samples identified them as his.

This is the extent of what has been covered by the media. As you can see, there is a definite lack of scientific information available, and there has been unnecessary sensationalism. What is needed is a clear explanation of the facts.

The typical, routinely performed HIV test is the ELISA. This detects the useless antibodies produced against the virus. The caveat here is that the antibodies take several weeks to develop after infection, and it's very possible for someone to be HIV+ve and have an initial negative result. This is what was assumed to be the case with Andrew in August 2002.

The normal course of events should be thus: if an ELISA test comes out positive, it is repeated. Only multiple positive ELISA tests are considered conclusive. If a subsequent ELISA comes out negative, however, a more sensitive test called a PCR is performed. The PCR is the gold standard, and is considered irrefutable.

So what happened in Andrew's case? We don't know. That sort of information is just not available right now.

It is known that some people are just immune to HIV. They have certain mutations that don't allow HIV to infect their cells. This has been known for 10 years now. Other people have certain genes that greatly retard HIV growth, and while they do become positive, they proceed very slowly. This has also been known for a long time now. But for someone to become positive, and then negative? This is new.

Could this be it?

A British man may have overcome the HIV virus.

25 year old Andrew Stimpson was diagnosed as HIV positive in august 2002. 14 months later, his HIV tests have come negative.

Andrew, on learning of the negative results, tried to sue the hospital for bungling his initial results. However, DNA analysis of the old samples have confirmed them to be his. This spontaneous clearance of the virus is all the more mysterious in light of the fact that he gave up safe sex with his HIV positive boyfriend after his own diagnosis.

Talk about crappy cakes!

"A Dallas cab driver is in big trouble for getting caught on tape sprinkling dried feces on pastries. Forty-nine-year-old Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh is on trial for allegedly throwing fecal matter on pastries at a Fiesta grocery store. Police said they found a pile of human feces by his bed. He would dry it [and] grate it up with a cheese grater and then sprinkle it at the store, officials said."

It's the bit about the cheese grater that lifts this story out of the horror camp and plops it down in the mind-numbingly-horrifying-puking-nightmare camp. Will any one us ever be able to shake the mental image of Behrouz sitting in his apartment contentedly grating his dried crap? And, more importantly, will any one of us ever eat anything with a chocolate dusting?

I had a nice picture of a piece of cake to go with this, but thankfully I changed my mind.

Tale of Two Cities: Part Two

I recently went to Coimbatore for a Bioinformatics Conference. While the conference was fairly blah, the place was interesting.

I was immediately struck by how different Coimbatore is from Madurai. Life in Madurai feels like swimming in a viscous soup of molasses. There are times you feel like an insect who knows he's doomed to an amber sarcophagus, but struggles anyway. Everything seems constrained and decrepit, including the people.

Coimbatore seems so different. For one, it's much more modern, and that goes for the people as well. Thankfully the tragic fashion sense of Madurans doesn't extend it's hideous arms as far north as I might have imagined. Hence my amazement at the natives. The people are friendly and helpful (!!) and the weather's better too. It's claimed the Siruvani is the second sweetest water in the world. Madurai, by comparison, has very hard water. That is, when it has water.