WASHINGTON: It may take a virus to kill a virus, say researchers who have made a biological weapon that seeks out cells infected with HIV. In laboratory experiments at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Centre, scientists have shown that a harmless virus coated with special proteins will search out cells infected with HIV and then lock onto the cell surfaces. Dr James A Hoxie, senior author of the study in the journal science, said that the hunter virus could be loaded with a biological weapon that would attack HIV inside infected cells and, thus, control the Aids virus. The study was published on Friday.

Bad vodka

MOSCOW: Authorities in the east coast city of Nakhodka have burned 16,000 bottles worth of bootleg vodka in an ongoing effort to crack down on moonshine, a news agency reported. The homemade vodka, confiscated mostly from private traders and underground distilleries, was doused with gasoline and set alight at a waste plant on Thursday, the Itar-Tass News Agency said. Authorities issue regular warnings about the dangers of bootleg vodka, which results in hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths each year in Russia. But illegal vodka, which is far cheaper than officially sanctioned vodka, remains hugely popular.

Caged girl

CHILTON (US): A seven-year-old American girl shut in a dog cage in a cold, dark basement was discovered when her 11-year-old brother, coatless and barefoot, went to a police station for help, authorities said. The girl's father, Michael Rogers, could be sentenced to up to 80 years in prison if convicted on eight charges of physical and mental abuse of the family's four children. Her mother, Angeline, faces up to 55 years on eight counts. They were jailed on Wednesday on a bail of US $ 5,000. Investigators found the girl in a 61-cm-by-43-cm wire cage. She was thin but otherwise healthy. She and her siblings - aged nine, six and 16 months - were placed with relatives.

Army kills ants

BEIJING: A huge white-ant nest, posing grave threat to a military academy in China's Jiangsu province, has been destroyed by People's Liberation Army, a report said here on Friday. Hundreds of thousands of white ants, weighing 15 kg in total, were killed along with their 8.2-cm `king' and 9.6-cm `queen,' the official China daily reports, quoting the Shanghai-based The Liberation Daily.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.