beyond the edge

Things you need to know before watching The Avengers (film universe events)

******** Contains spoilers to previous movies ********

Captain America, or Steve Rogers, is a war hero from WWII. He was given the super soldier serum by Tony Stark's father which enhanced all his human capacities without giving him any superpowers. The Captain's shield is made from vibranium and is extremely resistant to kinetic forces. In his final mission in the war, Captain America crashed near the arctic and was frozen for 70 years. How he retained his youth is not yet explained.......

Thor is the son of Odin All-Father, the king of Asgard, a realm that exists in parallel to Earth. His hammer, Mjollnir, can only be lifted by someone worthy of it. During his brief banishment to Earth, he fell in love with Jane Foster and became good friends with her mentor, Erik Selvig.

Loki was raised as Thor's brother, but Loki later discovers that he's actually the surviving child of Asgard's mortal enemies, the Frost Giants of Jotunheim. Eager to please Odin and prove himself the more worthy child, Loki attempts to destroy Jotunheim, and when rejected by Odin, chooses to fall into the abyss of his own creation and vanished from Asgard.

Tony Stark is Iron Man and requires no introduction beyond "uhh...genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?" Suffice to say that he's also a drama queen who craves applause who would and did build a tower with his own name plastered across the top.

The Arc Reactor is a clean energy source created by Tony's father but perfected by Tony. He has a miniature version in his chest to prevent shrapnel from reaching his heart.

Inside the nervy scientist Bruce Banner lies the alter-ego Hulk, a giant green monster that arose from a failed super soldier serum experiment. Hulk's main identity is anger and is almost uncontrollable when unleashed.

Hawkeye's name is Clint Barton whose main prowess is with bow and arrow. Black Widow is Natasha Romanov. Both are spies and assassins under SHIELD. For a while Black Widow was undercover as Tony Stark's secretary.

SHIELD is the secret security subdivision that first advanced the Avengers Initiative, uniting a group of superheroes in preparation for overwhelming threats. Nick Fury is the organisation's badass eccentric director. Agent Phil Coulson is the field agent SHIELD sent to recruit Stark and to investigate various phenomena in previous movies.

The Tesseract (or Cosmic Cube, though I'm not sure if that name is ever used in the movies) is an unlimited power source first discovered by Captain America's enemy, the Red Skull, and was lost when Captain America crashed his plane. Erik Selvig was called upon to work on harnessing the power of the Tesseract at the end of Thor.



Ugh...after writing all that I realised how much there was going on. While The Avengers follows directly on the heels of Captain America, most characters and plot-points are actually laid down in Iron Man and Thor.

Made a presentation for "HIV in Africa" for microbiology.

Dumbfounded and blank-faced silence is not something one likes to be met with as one finishes her speech and asks enthusiastically, "So, any questions?" (Okay, I didn't ask that, group member did, but was still depressing)

Read up on more AIDS epidemiology than I would like to in a lifetime (dislike very muchly discussing statistical assumptions and limitations).

Was interesting though:
- 5% of Sudanese women knew condoms are effective prevention against AIDS
- 25% of pregnant Sudanese women never heard of AIDS (not, mind you, meaning they're not HIV positive, because...)
- Only 10% of existing HIV patients are diagnosed
- About 25 million people are infected in Africa: compare with Australia's population of 20 million
- About 4 million worldwide die each year from AIDS: compare with malaria's global annual mortality of 3 million. Malaria endemic regions overlap with AIDS epidemic regions (particularly countries like Kenya). ...AIDS epidemic tend to overlap with a lot of diseased areas.



On the way home from Redfern saw a great shepherd dog lazing on the footpath and as I wondered what it was doing, it looked at me and raised an eyebrow O__o;;; Never had a dog raise its eyebrow at me before (do dogs have eyebrows? Well, it's that extra furry tuft of...fur, above their eyes).



Also saw recently a Chinese newspaper article lamenting the treatment of HIV patients in a hospital. One of their prime examples was a HIV-positive man who needed a bone marrow transplant, and the hospital refused to give it.

WELL DUH!!! Giving bone marrow transplant to someone with depressed immunity equates to death sentence. In order for his body not to reject (any) transplant, doctors have to give him immunosuppressive drugs...which you just can't do if they're already at risk of severe immunosuppression. Also, the more opportunistic infection one gets in the latent incubation phase of HIV, the worse the prognosis (i.e. the faster AIDS develops).

Anyway, the article goes on to say that the guy died about 7 years later (which is pretty good for someone with a bone marrow problem and HIV), and the doctor had "hastily" written "AIDS" as major cause of death. The article then gasped, "But! What if it wasn't AIDS? What if it was another disease?"

*GASP* The "S" on the end of "AIDS" is there for a reason (no, it is NOT the plural for AID >_>). Syndrome is a collection of symptoms, not necessarily a defined disease. But technicality aside: NO ONE DIES UNIQUELY FROM AIDS. AIDS predisposes you to a number of VERY nasty things - infections from practically any infectious agent as well as cancer. IT DOES NOT CAUSE DEATH DIRECTLY. Death from AIDS always results from coinfections (usually plural) or cancer (yes, AIDS increases the risk of cancer - a bit like the "just when you thought it can't get any worse" syndrome).


...==; Anyway, stoopid sensationalisation. On the other hand the issue they were trying to present does actually exist and is quite serious - discrimination in all sorts of societies against those who have HIV. More than 50% of people in a survey by Ministry of Health Uganda said that if they were diagnosed HIV+, they would hide it from their family members, which is exactly why despite being faithful, some 80% of women who are infected with HIV are married.

Stupid men who sleep around.

Random fact of the day:

Tinea refers to ringworms¹. Taenia refers to tapeworms².


1) Ringworms are a type of fungus and are not wormy at all.
2) Tapeworms are nastily wormy and have hooks and suckers that help them...sucker onto your intestine.