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      Gilead Shot Provides Total Protection From HIV in Trial of Young African Women

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      An injection given just twice a year could herald a breakthrough in protecting the population that has the highest infection rates.Researchers and activists in the trenches of the long fight against H.I.V. got a rare piece of exciting news this week: Results from a large clinical trial in Africa showed that a twice-yearly injection of a new antiviral drug gave young women total protection from the virus.“I got cold shivers,” said Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, an investigator in the trial of the drug, lenacapavir, describing the startling sight of a line of zeros in the data column for new infections. “After all our years of sadness, particularly over vaccines, this truly is surreal.”Yvette Raphael, the leader of a group called Advocacy for Prevention of H.I.V. and AIDS in South Africa, said it was “the best news ever.”The randomized controlled trial, called Purpose 1, was conducted in Uganda and South Africa. It tested whether the every-six-months injection of lenacapavir, made by Gilead Sciences, would provide better protection against H.I.V. infection than two other drugs in wide use in high-income countries, both daily pills.The results were so convincing that the trial was halted early at the recommendation of the independent data review committee, which said all participants should be offered the injection because it clearly provided superior protection against the virus.None of the 2,134 women in the arm of the trial who received lenacapavir contracted H.I.V. By comparison, 16 of the 1,068 women (or 1.5 percent) who took Truvada, a daily pill that has been available for more than a decade, and 39 of 2,136 women (1.8 percent) who received a newer daily pill called Descovy were infected.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Akira Endo, Scholar of Statins That Reduce Heart Disease, Dies at 90

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      The Japanese biochemist found in the 1970s that cholesterol-lowering drugs lowered the LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, level in the blood.Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist whose research on fungi helped to lay the groundwork for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease, died on June 5. He was 90.Chiba Kazuhiro, the president of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Dr. Endo was a professor emeritus, confirmed the death in a statement. The statement did not give a cause or say where he died.Cholesterol, mostly made in the liver, has important functions in the body. It is also a major contributor to coronary artery disease, a leading cause of death in the United States, Japan and many other countries.In the early 1970s, Dr. Endo grew fungi in an effort to find a natural substance that could block a crucial enzyme that is part of the production of cholesterol. Some scientists worried that doing so might threaten cholesterol’s positive functions.But by 1980, Dr. Endo’s team had found that a cholesterol-lowering drug, or statin, lowered the LDL, or “bad” cholesterol level, in the blood. And by 1987, after other researchers in the field had published additional research on statins, Merck was manufacturing the first licensed statin.Such drugs have proven effective in reducing the risk for cardiovascular disease, and millions of people in the United States and beyond now take them for high levels of LDL.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Have Wine for Breakfast, Put On a 51-Pound Suit and Get to the Battlefield

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      One by one, Greek soldiers, bellies full from a breakfast of red wine and dry bread, armed and clad themselves in a bulky, buglike suit of armor as they prepared for battle.They aimed their spears at wooden targets, and their chariot was connected to a treadmill motor, but for 11 hours, these elite soldiers from the Hellenic Armed Forces pretended to fight as if it was the 15th century B.C.They had been recruited for a study to determine if the Dendra panoply, a suit of armor from 3,500 years ago considered to be one of the oldest known from the Bronze Age in Europe, could be worn in battle. Or if it was only ceremonial, as some scholars have previously argued.The soldiers wore a replica of the suit, and scientists tracked their blood-glucose levels, heart rates and other physiological measures, finding that the men’s bodies could handle the strain of the armor, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS One on May 22.Andreas Flouris, the lead author of the paper and the director of the FAME Lab at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece, where the battles took place, said that the simulated combat, as well as other research components, showed that the armor would have been “a very advanced piece of military technology” at the time.“If you’re carrying a piece of wood or a stone or maybe something with a bit of bronze in the front, like a spear, somebody wearing this armor looks like a giant robot in front of you,” said Dr. Flouris, a professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Summer Guide to Covid Testing, Symptoms and Treatment

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      Experts say cases could rise in the coming weeks. Here’s what to know about symptoms, testing and treatment.As the so-called “FLiRT” variants of the coronavirus continue to gain traction, doctors and researchers are bracing for a potential rise in cases this summer. KP.2, one of these variants, now accounts for 28.5 percent of cases, and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a small increase in Covid-related emergency room visits and positive tests.Here’s what to know about symptoms, testing and treatment if you do fall ill:Symptoms to watch out forThere’s no evidence that symptoms of the FLiRT variants and other recent strains are any different, said Aubree Gordon, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Michigan.The symptoms still include sneezing, congestion, headaches, sore muscles, nausea or vomiting. Many people also report exhaustion and a general “blah” feeling.In general, the more immunity you’ve built up from vaccination or past infections, the milder your next bout with the virus is likely to be. (Though it’s possible to experience more intense symptoms with a new infection than you’ve had in past Covid cases.)The symptoms of Covid can look similar to those caused by allergies or other infections. The best way to tell the difference is to test.When (and how) to testIn an ideal world, experts said, people would take a Covid test as soon as they develop symptoms or learn they were exposed, and then test again a day or two later. But if you only have a limited number of at-home rapid tests, there are a few ways to maximize their usefulness: Test immediately if you have a fever and a cough, said Dr. Davey Smith, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Diego.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alzheimer’s Takes a Financial Toll Long Before Diagnosis, Study Finds

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      New research shows that people who develop dementia often begin falling behind on bills years earlier.Long before people develop dementia, they often begin falling behind on mortgage payments, credit card bills and other financial obligations, new research shows.A team of economists and medical experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Georgetown University combined Medicare records with data from Equifax, the credit bureau, to study how people’s borrowing behavior changed in the years before and after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or a similar disorder.What they found was striking: Credit scores among people who later develop dementia begin falling sharply long before their disease is formally identified. A year before diagnosis, these people were 17.2 percent more likely to be delinquent on their mortgage payments than before the onset of the disease, and 34.3 percent more likely to be delinquent on their credit card bills. The issues start even earlier: The study finds evidence of people falling behind on their debts five years before diagnosis.“The results are striking in both their clarity and their consistency,” said Carole Roan Gresenz, a Georgetown University economist who was one of the study’s authors. Credit scores and delinquencies, she said, “consistently worsen over time as diagnosis approaches, and so it literally mirrors the changes in cognitive decline that we’re observing.”The research adds to a growing body of work documenting what many Alzheimer’s patients and their families already know: Decision-making, including on financial matters, can begin to deteriorate long before a diagnosis is made or even suspected. People who are starting to experience cognitive decline may miss payments, make impulsive purchases or put money into risky investments they would not have considered before the disease.“There’s not just getting forgetful, but our risk tolerance changes,” said Lauren Hersch Nicholas, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who has studied dementia’s impact on people’s finances. “It might seem suddenly like a good move to move a diversified financial portfolio into some stock that someone recommended.”Tell us about your family’s challenges with money management and Alzheimer’s. More

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      PTSD Has Surged Among College Students

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      The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among college students rose to 7.5 percent in 2022, more than double the rate five years earlier, researchers found.Post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses among college students more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, climbing most sharply as the coronavirus pandemic shut down campuses and upended young adults’ lives, according to new research published on Thursday.The prevalence of PTSD rose to 7.5 percent from 3.4 percent during that period, according to the findings. Researchers analyzed responses from more than 390,000 participants in the Healthy Minds Study, an annual web-based survey.“The magnitude of this rise is indeed shocking,” said Yusen Zhai, the paper’s lead author, who heads the community counseling clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His clinic had seen more young people struggling in the aftermath of traumatic events. So he expected an increase, but not such a large one.Dr. Zhai, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Studies, attributed the rise to “broader societal stressors” on college students, such as campus shootings, social unrest and the sudden loss of loved ones from the coronavirus.PTSD is a mental health disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks and heightened sensitivity to reminders of an event, continuing more than a month after it occurs.It is a relatively common disorder, with an estimated 5 percent of adults in the United States experiencing it in any given year, according to the most recent epidemiological survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services. Lifetime prevalence is 8 percent in women and 4 percent in men, the survey found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rivers of Lava on Venus Reveal a More Volcanically Active Planet

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      New software let scientists re-examine old radar images, providing some of the strongest evidence yet that volcanoes continue to reshape the hellish planet.The planet Venus, with its active volcanic region highlighted in red in the Sif Mons area.IRSPS/Università d’AnnunzioWitnessing the blood-red fires of a volcanic eruption on Earth is memorable. But to see molten rock bleed out of a volcano on a different planet would be extraordinary. That is close to what scientists have spotted on Venus: two vast, sinuous lava flows oozing from two different corners of Earth’s planetary neighbor.“After you see something like this, the first reaction is ‘wow,’” said Davide Sulcanese, a doctoral student at the Università d’Annunzio in Pescara, Italy, and an author of a study reporting the discovery in the journal Nature Astronomy, published on Monday.Earth and Venus were forged at the same time. Both are made of the same primeval matter, and both are the same age and size. So why is Earth a paradise overflowing with water and life, while Venus is a scorched hellscape with acidic skies?Volcanic eruptions tinker with planetary atmospheres. One theory holds that, eons ago, several apocalyptic eruptions set off a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, turning it from a temperate, waterlogged world into an arid desert of burned glass.To better understand its volcanism, scientists hoped to catch a Venusian eruption in the act. But although the planet is known to be smothered in volcanoes, an opaque atmosphere has prevented anyone from seeing an eruption the way spacecraft have spotted them on Io, the hypervolcanic moon of Jupiter.In the 1990s, NASA’s spacecraft Magellan used cloud-penetrating radar to survey most of the planet. But back then, the relatively low-resolution images made spotting fresh molten rock a troublesome task.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A.I.’s Black Boxes Just Got a Little Less Mysterious

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      Researchers at the A.I. company Anthropic claim to have found clues about the inner workings of large language models, possibly helping to prevent their misuse and to curb their potential threats.One of the weirder, more unnerving things about today’s leading artificial intelligence systems is that nobody — not even the people who build them — really knows how the systems work.That’s because large language models, the type of A.I. systems that power ChatGPT and other popular chatbots, are not programmed line by line by human engineers, as conventional computer programs are.Instead, these systems essentially learn on their own, by ingesting massive amounts of data and identifying patterns and relationships in language, then using that knowledge to predict the next words in a sequence.One consequence of building A.I. systems this way is that it’s difficult to reverse-engineer them or to fix problems by identifying specific bugs in the code. Right now, if a user types “Which American city has the best food?” and a chatbot responds with “Tokyo,” there’s no real way of understanding why the model made that error, or why the next person who asks may receive a different answer.And when large language models do misbehave or go off the rails, nobody can really explain why. (I encountered this problem last year, when a Bing chatbot acted in an unhinged way during an interaction with me, and not even top executives at Microsoft could tell me with any certainty what had gone wrong.)The inscrutability of large language models is not just an annoyance but a major reason some researchers fear that powerful A.I. systems could eventually become a threat to humanity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More