A new study show that bee venom can kill the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). While we don’t recommend getting stung by bees as a preventative, this COULD be incorporated into a protective gel for women.

The secret is a toxin called melittin that’s found in the venom.

In the Huffington Post, Cavan Sieczkowski quotes researcher Joshua L. Hood as saying, "Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this gel as a preventive measure to stop the initial infection."

This makes it even more imperative that we try to save the bees, and it’s not just honey bees that are in trouble. The American bumblebee seems to be disappearing too.
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Pain was written between mid-December 1985 and mid-January 1986. It is the last thing I wrote before becoming conscious of the close encounter experience I had on December 26, 1985. While I was writing it, uneasy and confused memories of that experience were flowing through my mind, and I was beginning the process of research that would eventually lead to recollection of the close encounter and the writing of Communion.

The story contains a great deal of unconscious material about the experience. In fact, my entire unconscious understanding of close encounter and its connection to the dangerous sacred is contained in the story.
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We’re desperately searching for new oil and gas (with fracking), but we have plenty of coal. China does too, but they use so much of it that their country is hopelessly polluted. If only we could find a way to burn coal without releasing carbon dioxide.

It may have happened. Researchers have just produced heat from coal for 203 continuous hours, while capturing 99% of the CO2 produced in the reaction.

Biomolecular engineer Liang-Shih Fan pioneered technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal’s energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.
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African forest elephants are being poached out of existence. A new study with of largest dataset on forest elephants ever compiled reveals a loss of more than 60% in the past decade, due to slaughtering them for their ivory tusks. The decline is documented throughout forest elephant’s range in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Republic of Congo.

Distinct from the African savannah elephant, the African forest elephant is slightly smaller than its better known relative and is considered by many to be a separate species. They play a vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of one of the Earth’s critical carbon sequestering tropical forests.
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