It starts with a nosebleed and ends with a dead guy. Three dead guys, actually, and one of them is Ed Koch.

Nothing brings 'em out like public hearings on the topic of same-sex marriage, and today's legislative committee hearings in Minnesota were no exceptions.

Researchers at a major AIDS conference in Atlanta announced today that a 2½ year child in Mississippi born with HIV has been cured of the virus after taking an aggressive regimen of drugs since birth. The child, whose mother had stopped giving her medication, is the second confirmed case of a human being cured of HIV, after a man was cured in 2010 when he received a bone marrow transplant.

The results of a huge, seven-year study in rural South Africa are in, and god damn: by giving antiretroviral drugs daily to 100,000 people in Kwazulu-Natal, researchers were able to raise the entire region's life expectancy by more than a decade. From the LA Times:

Welcome to our science-like weekly feature, "Hey, Science," in which we will have our most provocative scientific questions answered by real live scientists (or related experts). No question is too smart for us to tackle, theoretically speaking. This week, experts address a Gawker reader's wacky theory: Can massive blood transfusions be used to treat AIDS?

When former mayor Ed Koch died early yesterday morning, the accolades were quick to descend: he was a "a great man," who "did good," ebulliently pulling his city out of the worst financial disaster it had ever faced. Still, his incredibly long tenure also coincided with both the crack and AIDS epidemic, the latter of which, activist and documentarian David France writes in a piece for New York, he turned a blind eye to:

Earlier this week, the key AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)/Treatment Action Group (TAG) activist Spencer Cox died in New York of AIDS-related causes. He was 44 years old. Cox and his colleagues essentially made the current, life-extending treatment of AIDS what it is through their knowledge, force and will. As one person in David France's How to Survive a Plague documentary puts it, "Activists created a system that was able to do everything faster, better, cheaper, more ethically and more effectively." Gay men (with the help of crucial allies) essentially saved themselves, though the documentary warns that people with AIDS are not yet out of the woods. Cox's death is a very sad reminder of just that.

The most satisfying cinematic moment I've experienced all year occurs during the last 15 minutes of David France's documentary How To Survive a Plague. I don't even want to hint at what it is because it could risk depriving you of the rush it gave me. What works like a movie twist feels like an epiphany in this chronicle of the first nine years of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP. Just know that if you care about social justice and gay rights, you should see this film. And if you don't know much about ACT UP's history, you will be wowed.

Here's Paris Hilton's inevitable apology for getting caught saying that gays are "disgusting" and "probably have AIDS", via GLAAD:

Noted dimwitted bigot and frequent star of recordings she didn't know she was starring in Paris Hilton has said something stupid again. Imagine. And it was during New York Fashion Week. Double imagine.

Bryan Kutner is an HIV counselor who shared his knowledge and experience with us for last week's "Please Don't Infect Me, I'm Sorry" story. However, Kutner has taken exception to the overall tone of the piece, so we invited him for a discussion (slash debate?) on HIV risk, prevention, stigma and what all else you want to ask him about.

Knowledge doesn't supersede a hatred for condoms in unsafe Grindr encounters, says an apt study.

The first guy I ever turned down on Grindr for having HIV, my patient zero if you will, is all kinds of hot: hot in the face, hot in the body and hotheaded. In May, he asked me to come over and make out. We chatted a little bit more, he told me about his status and I slipped out of the conversation, just like that. Randomly in July, I noticed him at a movie theater: On Grindr and online, people lie with pictures all the time, choosing ones that distort their appearance in a captured second, but I was able to pick Miguel right out of a crowd. His picture is a symbol of habitual honesty, maybe, but also because he's so attractive, he has no reason to lie.

Last week, the Washington Post published a story called "In 2012, AIDS is a different beast for gay men in D.C.," which aimed to be illuminating, but probably not as much as it would turn out to be. It was later revealed that one of the article's main sources, the HIV-positive D.J. Steedley, who is described as "the modern face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic" and as needing "a certain level of discipline and caution," was signed as a contract performer to the notorious bareback gay porn company Treasure Island Media. Steedely previously appeared as a performer for the equally notorious, often bareback "military" porn company Active Duty. Oops.

A team of researchers working out of the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, have received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine on humans beginning in January. What makes this vaccine different from the handful of others in development around the world is that it uses dead HIV-1 virus, in a similar methodology that led to vaccines for polio, rabies and hepatitis A.

HIV levels! Generic Lipitor! Arsenic grandmothers! Low B12! Stressed parents! Hospital food! Fire surgery! Foster drugs! And Europeans are a bunch of nasty motherfuckers! It's your Friday Health Watch, where we watch your health—to death!

There have been plenty of absurd tributes to Steve Jobs. But the most tone-deaf has got to be the one by Wikileaks, which last night tweeted a link to a faked copy of the former Apple CEO's positive "H.I.V. report." RIP, Steve!

Addiction vaccine! HIV contraceptive! Lazy walkers! Alien snails! Autism therapy! Pregnancy diet! Drunk driving! Sun vitamins! And Alzheimer's is already creeping into you, right now! It's your Tuesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—strenuously!

Depressercise! Eczema breasts! Sugar drinks! Dead babies! College smoking! Porn hiatus! Bird flu! Fat science! And all your tense sleep is making you tense, and sleepy! It's your Wednesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—invasively!

Alexander technique! HIV trends! Antidepressant popularity! Imaginary wrinkles! Expensive food! Sick ticks! Scorpion medicine! Elderly genes! And some very special research by scientist perv pornographers! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your health—maniacally!