Seven years ago, a reclusive Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman, startled the scientific world by claiming to solve one of the most famous and intractable problems in mathematics, called the Poincaré conjecture, and then disappearing back into St. Petersburg. RSS Feed Get Science News From The New York Times »

Now Dr. Perelman, who did not show up to receive a prestigious Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union in Madrid in 2006, has been named the winner of the million-dollar prize for solving the problem by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass.

The prize was announced Thursday by James Carlson, president of the institute. It is the first of the million-dollar Millennium prizes to be awarded. They were established in 2000 by the institute for the solution of seven longstanding problems.

Will Dr. Perelman accept? "He will let me know in due time," Dr. Carlson wrote in an e-mail message, acknowledging that they had been in touch. He declined to provide more details.

Poincaré's conjecture, elucidated in 1904, is fundamental to topology. It essentially says that any three-dimension space without holes in it is a sphere. Many distinguished mathematicians had grappled with the problem.

ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2010) -- Johns Hopkins scientists have found that a safe and inexpensive antibiotic in use since the 1970s for treating acne effectively targets infected immune cells in which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, lies dormant and prevents them from reactivating and replicating.

The drug, minocycline, likely will improve on the current treatment regimens of HIV-infected patients if used in combination with a standard drug cocktail known as HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy), according to research published now online and appearing in print April 15 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. "The powerful advantage to using minocycline is that the virus appears less able to develop drug resistance because minocycline targets cellular pathways not viral proteins," says Janice Clements, Ph.D., Mary Wallace Stanton Professor of Faculty Affairs, vice dean for faculty, and professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

"The big challenge clinicians deal with now in this country when treating HIV patients is keeping the virus locked in a dormant state," Clements adds. "While HAART is really effective in keeping down active replication, minocycline is another arm of defense against the virus."

Unlike the drugs used in HAART which target the virus, minocycline homes in on, and adjusts T cells, major immune system agents and targets of HIV infection. According to Clements, minocycline reduces the ability of T cells to activate and proliferate, both steps crucial to HIV production and progression toward full blown AIDS.

He was considered a loner and a misanthrope, but J.D. Salinger, who died recently, also had a warm and affectionate side. Previously undiscovered letters he wrote to an old army friend, which have been seen by SPIEGEL ONLINE, offer fascinating insights into the private life of the reclusive US author.

The letter is short and laconic. Six paragraphs, neatly typed, signed by hand. The sender writes that he misses the recipient, and he reports on the things that happened during his absence: Two fellow soldiers were wounded, a third soldier was given a military discharge, and another -- described as a "nice guy" -- is in Cuba. The writer's tone wavers between sarcasm and self-pity. He seems depressed, but he also mentions the possibility of having a drink with the recipient soon.

It is a letter from one friend to another, and yet it is so much more. The document, dated April 25, 1945, is a slice of contemporary and literary history.

Not just because it was written by a young GI on the German front, shortly before the end of World War II. Or because the "nice guy," as the writer elaborates in the course of the letter, was literary giant Ernest Hemingway.

In fact, the letter's importance stems from the identity of its author: Jerome D. Salinger, the notoriously reclusive American writer who died in January, at the age of 91. His first and only novel, "The Catcher in the Rye," published in 1951, shaped the attitudes of generations, but Salinger went into seclusion shortly afterwards and did not publish anything at all after 1965. Since his death, researchers have been grasping at practically every word that might have come from his pen.

Caught in a sting by Oscar-winning film-makers, a top California fish restaurant has shut its doors after being exposed selling illegal whale meat at $85 (£57) a plate.

The Hump, a sushi restaurant near Santa Monica airport, was the subject of a secret camera operation by producers of The Cove, a movie chronicling environmentalists' battles with Japanese dolphin hunters, which won best documentary at this year's Academy awards.

The restaurant was selling a meal billed as omakase, a Japanese term for chef's choice. Posing as diners last month, while in town for the Oscars, the film-makers discreetly recorded a waitress describing slices of exotic pink flesh on their plates as kujira, meaning whale.

Facing a fine of up to $20,000 and a possible year's imprisonment, the owners of the restaurant shut up shop yesterday, describing closure as "a self-imposed punishment on top of the fine that will be meted out in court".

The Hump pledged a "substantial contribution" to charities aimed at preserving the endangered whale population, adding: "The Hump apologises to our loyal customers, the community of Santa Monica and the public at large for our actions."

On the day the US Congress passed legislation providing health coverage to 32 million Americans without insurance, Political Scrapbook can reveal the Conservatives' Cash Gordon campaign was developed by an anti-healthcare lobbyist described as "Karl Rove 2.0″.

Writing on the Blue Blog yesterday, the affable Sam Coates claimed that Conservatives' campaign site against Labour/Unite links was "built in just a few days". What he doesn't tell you is that the system has been purchased off-the-shelf from Republican strategists David All Group and was originally developed to galvanise opposition to Barack Obama's healthcare reforms.

Cash Gordon is based on Operation Waiting Game, which leverages social media against reforms which, it is claimed, "will have the same devastating effects in the United States as it has in Canada and in nations across Europe: longer wait times and lower quality care".

In an embarrassment for CCHQ, the party's flagship campaign is currently hosted alongside those attempting to "rescue America from government-run health care",