Transmission

The first reported case of human rabies linked to a vampire bat was reported today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The case, which happened about a year ago, resulted in the death of a 19-year-old man from Mexico. In the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , the case went down this way: The man's mother said her son had been bitten on the heel of his left foot while he was sleeping. The man, who has living in Michoacán, Mexico, apparently never reported the bite or was treated for it. Ten days later he traveled to Louisiana to work at a sugarcane plantation, where after one day of work he got medical help for a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, pain in his left shoulder and numbness in his left hand.

Honda Motor Co. said Friday that it would recall more than 2 million vehicles in the U.S. and China to update the automatic transmission software in several popular models. The 1.5 million American cars affected include four-cylinder Accords from model years 2005 through 2010. The Accord was by far Honda's bestselling vehicle last month, followed by the Civic. CR-Vs from 2007 through 2010 and Elements from 2005 through 2008 are also affected by the voluntary recall. Shifting between the reverse, neutral and drive positions — a common sequence when trying to dislodge a vehicle trapped in mud or snow –- can damage a bearing in the automatic transmission system, the automaker said.

Taking a daily pill containing either one or two anti-HIV drugs can reduce transmission of the virus by as much as three-quarters among heterosexual couples, two studies in Africa have shown — a breakthrough finding that promises to intensify a new focus on AIDS prevention. The results were so compelling that the larger study was halted early and the drugs given to all the participants, researchers said Wednesday. In the absence of a vaccine to protect against the virus, this new approach, termed pre-exposure prophylaxis, may be the best hope for slowing or even halting the spread of the deadly plague throughout the developing world.

A federal court Tuesday rebuffed the U.S. Department of Energy's attempt to establish national interest corridors for new high-voltage electric transmission lines that would cover 100 million acres in 10 states, including state and national parks in the Mojave Desert. The three-judge panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that the energy agency failed to adequately consult affected states or conduct federally mandated environmental reviews in identifying vast swaths of land as suitable for fast-track treatment of applications to construct transmission facilities to supply areas of inadequate capacity.

Opaque as it is, Pope Benedict XVI's statement that condom use might be justified to prevent the transmission of AIDS is a significant development. His fellow bishops, especially those in Africa, should feel liberated to apply the pope's observation to a public health effort that has been hampered by the Vatican's dogmatism. As his critics point out, the pope's comments ? in a newly published book of interviews ? fell short of endorsing widespread use of prophylactics to prevent the transmission of AIDS and other diseases, and they certainly didn't question the church's opposition to contraception.

Google Inc. is backing a plan to lay undersea cables to connect proposed windmills off the mid-Atlantic coast, a step the Internet giant hopes will boost wind power as an energy source. The offshore wind power transmission line would stretch 350 miles from New Jersey to Virginia and could supply enough electricity to serve about 1.9 million households. But the ambitious project, which could cost billions of dollars, faces major hurdles as federal subsidies for construction of wind power installations are set to expire in 2012.

California utility regulators toughened their stance toward Pacific Gas & Electric Co. on Friday, one week after a gas pipeline explosion and fire killed at least four people and destroyed or damaged dozens of homes in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno. The executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission wrote PG&E President Christopher Johns asking for detailed information about potential weak links in the utility's 5,700-mile natural gas transmission network.

For the first time in the bleak history of the AIDS epidemic on the African continent, researchers have identified two new approaches that could blunt the effects of HIV on women: a vaginal gel to block infection, and cash payments to delay sexual activity. Together, experts say, they might finally make headway against a disease that has already killed millions. The approaches, described in separate findings released Monday at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, are considered especially important because women have borne the brunt of the epidemic.

NASA and JPL said Monday they were formally closing down the Phoenix Mars Lander program after repeated attempts to contact the craft failed and new images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed that it was apparently irretrievably damaged. "We will make no further efforts to contact it," said project manager Barry Goldstein of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada-Flintridge. The decision was not particularly surprising because virtually no one had expected the craft to survive the long Martian winter near the planet's north pole.