Motivation and Anti-charity

Near Tromsø, Norway

 
I often think of wonderful projects that I could do outside of work that would help me improve my skills in a particular area, or to enhance my view of the world. Often though, these things are the first things to get tossed aside when I am running short on time. Which is a shame as I think it's very important to expand and spend time on your own interests. Of late, I have been trying to create more time for myself through a few different means (a lot of list writing!) but I found my motivation needed just a small kick in the bum.

A good friend of mine is greatly interested in motivation and projects outside of work. He put me on to this idea of an "anti-charity". The premise is that you commit to completing some task by a set date, otherwise money will be donated to a charity of your choosing. The charity was select has to be one that you do not wish your money to be sent to. For example, I selected a political party from the opposite end of the spectrum to my political view. Other might select gun advocacy groups if they are against guns. The idea is that the thought of YOUR money going to these groups will prompt you into getting your project done.

They are websites that will facilitate these sorts of arrangements, although I am have not used them. I have made an agreement with my friend, and he with me, to donate money on our behalf should we fail to complete our tasks.

For my task, I have chosen to learn the basics of python, a scripting language, by undertaking the "Learn Python the Hard Way" course by Zed A. Shaw. Learning python will come in very handy in many aspects of my life, and it is always good to diversify the languages you know. I've finished 15 of the 52 exercises so far, and I have until the end of June to finish the rest. I'm determined to get it finished!

XMRV and CFS

Two relatives of mine have recently been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). They are currently undertaking an experimental treatment prescribed by a doctor in Melbourne. I'll discuss more about the treatment and how it is supposed to work at a later time. For the moment I wish to discuss some interesting developments in the literature about a possible cause of CFS.

In 2009, Lombardi et al discovered that people with CFS had a significantly higher incidence of a recently discovered retrovirus, the xenotropic murine retro virus (XMRV), than a control group (no CFS). A year later, another study by Lo et al again found the presence of XMRV in many people with CFS and in few people in the control group. It was looking as though a possible relationship between the retro virus and CFS had been found.

Transmission electron microscopy image of XMRV (source: CDC)

The CDC (centre for disease control) in the USA published a report (Switzer2010) finding no significant detection of the retrovirus in CFS patients (theres a number of other journal articles with the same findings). Lo2010 puts it best:

"Further studies are needed to determine whether the same strong association with MLV-related viruses is found in other groups of patients with CFS, whether these viruses play a causative role in the development of CFS, and whether they represent a threat to the blood supply."

The editor in chief at PNAS wrote an editoral (Schekman2010) in September highlighting some concerns with the validity of the results in the Lo2010 paper in light of the Switzer2010 results.

Further to this, the November 15th, 2010 issue (its available online already.. I can't time travel yet!) of the Journal of Infectious Diseases has a number of papers addressing this issue. An editorial was written (Kearney2010) summarising the current state of play. It called from greater collaboration between different research groups and standardisation of detection techniques. It also has a crack at possible reasons the detection of the retrovirus varies significantly:

"Several factors may contribute to the varied detection of XMRV in different populations, including geographic distribution, patient selection, analyte choice(DNA, RNA, antigen), and detection methodology. Geography may play a pivotal role. Henrich et al [24] studied samples from immunodeficient patients who were well characterized at facilities in Boston and found no evidence of XMRV, whereas Lombardi et al [6] studied similarly affected patients from a distinctly different geographic region and found substantial rates of XMRV."

 The different studies did use different populations to gather their numbers. This could potentially have an impact, but it at least means that if XMRV is related to CFS, it is not ubiquitous. The old scientific adage "Correlation does not imply causation" comes to mind in this case. Is there other possible reasons why XMRV is present in people with CFS in some populations?
 
It seems as though there this is a very hot topic at the moment, considering the caliber of the journals that these articles are being published in. It seems there is still significant doubt whether the XMRV is linked with CFS. This will, in no doubt, be cleared up in the near future. I will try to post new developments about this as they come to hand.

If you'd like to read more, the CDC has a very nice updates and Q&A page.