I haven’t written much about HIV/AIDS denialism. It’s pseudo-science through and through, as lousy and underhanded as creationists are with the evidence for evolution or climate change deniars are with thermometer readings. They are sometimes allied with antivaxxers and other forms of quackery, but generally don’t neatly fit across the traditional left-right US political axis. Regardless, in some circles the shit hit the proverbial fan this week:

When Duesberg was recently given space in Scientific American I think the blogosphere was rightly chagrinned that they would give space to a crank whose crackpot ideas are thought to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But it seemed at the time he had been keeping his denialism on the down low, maybe appearing to have given up on his crank view that HIV does not cause AIDS. Not so anymore. He’s back, and has secured publication of a paper denying HIV/AIDS in an Italian Journal.

• FishoutofWater had a great diary this week about a breathless, bullshit, press report of a super volcano that was on the verge of taking out London. Like lemmings rushing to credibility suicide, other venues picked it up and ran with the bullshit.
• A whole new world of extremophile based organisms is found hidden away deep beneath the icy-blue Southern Ocean of Antarctica.
• Sunday Sunday Sunday, one day only! Well, actually Sunday – Weds, astronomers from all over come to Austin where I happen to be right now. Anyone thinking of going?
  

  The American Astronomical Society, the largest gathering of professional stargazers, will meet at the Austin Convention Center in Texas from Sunday though Jan. 12. On the agenda are new results from several NASA missions – including the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Kepler Space Telescope and the European Space Agency-led Herschel Space Observatory.