Four Neat Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. At In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe comments on a stunning success in the field of drug discovery:

... Mechanistically, as mentioned, it's first in class. And clinically, well, we now have evidence that in real-world use it can do something that has never been seen before: twice-yearly injections in thousands of female trial volunteers in high-risk areas (South Africa and Uganda) showed a one hundred per cent prevention rate of HIV infection.

These results got a prolonged standing ovation when presented at a conference last month, as well they should. Here is the accompanying paper in the NEJM. It should be noted that this audience reaction is not exactly the norm at scientific conferences - the norm is uncomfortable silence after a request for questions by the moderator, if we're being honest here, so tumultous applause really stands out. But one hundred per cent success really stands out, too. You just don't see that in large-scale trials, not too damn often - this one was, in fact, stopped at the interim analysis point for overwhelming efficacy... [links omitted, bold added]

Lowe reports that this drug brings with it the problem of making it harder to test others (e.g., vaccines) that are in the pipeline, but in light of the potential to head off a million infections a year, I'd have to agree that it's a "wonderful" problem.

2. In equally amazing, albeit less earth-shattering news, I learned this morning that genetic engineers have developed seedless blackberries:

Pairwise chose the blackberry for editing because it is nutritious and tasty and has several traits which could benefit from genetic edits.

"With many gene targets yet to be discovered, the blackberry is an appealing choice for Pairwise to make major advances in crop improvement," says [Lauren] Redpath. "We have already achieved several blackberry traits that offer grower and consumer improvements, including thornlessness and seedlessness."

...

"Now that we've achieved the seedless trait in blackberries, we can take those learnings and apply them to removing the pits in other fruits, such as cherries," says Redpath.

One of my favorite childhood memories was picking wild blackberries from behind the house with a brother and some friends, and my mother baking a pie from them.

Those seeds never bothered me so much, but pits, like those in cherries are a menace. Machines mostly take care of those, but I've checked for chipped teeth a couple of times after forgetting to be careful. Good riddance!

3. How do horses get to the Olympics?

That question hadn't occurred to me either until I got wind of an interesting piece on the subject at Distractify, which was written about the last Olympics, in Tokyo:

The majority of the equine passengers traveled to Japan via Liège, Belgium, a city that boasts a hotel specifically designed for horses.

According to Insider, after 60 days of health monitoring and a seven-day quarantine in Belgium, the horses had to board an Emirates SkyCargo Boeing 777-F, a cargo aircraft large enough to carry the specifically designed stalls alongside equipment, feed, water, and other equally heavy items.

Eventing horses weigh around 1,150 pounds, per Reuters. Dressage horses tend to be slightly heavier, weighing approximately 1,400 pounds.

Fifty-nine grooms were assigned the mighty task of taking care of the horses during the lengthy and tiring journey. Veterinarians were also on board.

And yes, they make the trip standing up. Ryanair, eat your heart out!

4. A recent roundup about weird office decor at Ask a Manager includes a room (Item 15) that prompted a funny April Fool's joke:

Image by Andy Mabbett, via Wimimedia Commons, license.

There was an unloved conference room with a white board and a couch or something, and Facilities decided to liven it up. They took away the couch (alas), painted it sky blue with clouds, put in an artificial grass rug, put in Adirondack chairs, the whole bit. I think it was supposed to look like Wine Country, California or similar bits of Palo Alto -- but since that's what the Windows 95 desktop was inspired by, and this was an operating system adjacent company ...

For April Fool's I added a large error message box and some mouse cursors.

Well done, and kudos for resisting the temptation to whip out some paint and do a Blue Screen of Death!

-- CAV