AIDS in India could become as dire as in Africa

The epidemic of HIV/AIDS in India is following the same pattern as that of sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s, and it could become just as devastating unless preventive action is taken now, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, in a paper to be published Saturday (June 21) in the British Medical Journal. “In hindsight, opportunities were missed to stem the explosive growth of AIDS in Africa,” says Dr. Malcolm Potts, professor of population and family planning at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and lead author of the paper. “It would be a tragedy if we don’t apply the lessons learned from the failure to control the spread of HIV in Africa to the current situation in India. It is very painful to watch history repeating itself.”

Nature’s filter: Wetlands clean selenium from agricultural runoff

Researchers have found a natural detox program for selenium-contaminated farm runoff in the form of wetland vegetation and microbes. Results from a two-year study show that man-made wetlands in California’s San Joaquin Valley were able to remove an average of 69.2 percent of the selenium in agricultural drainage water. More significantly, some plant populations showed remarkable promise at converting selenium into a harmless gas consisting primarily of dimethyl selenide. That means less of the selenium would end up in sediment or plant tissue.