Ebola death toll passes 1,900 per WHO

More than 1,900 people have now died of Ebola in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, warning the world’s worst-ever outbreak of the virus is still gathering pace.

There are now more than 3,500 confirmed cases since the West African outbreak began in December of 2013.

Ofttimes being correct is not a very nice place. I again post my chart from 08.25.2014:

I have no ability in forecasting anything. I just extended the trendlines; and the trend will stay in place until the contagion level and death toll undergo some transformation. Extending the graph until 1 October will be very sobering indeed. I will do so after I get back from a show on 09.06.2014 or 09.07.2014..it is a two day event, and it is out of doors. The weather forecast for 09.06.2014 is very much up in the air at this juncture. I will post pics of one of my other lives.

Warning: Quasi-political post below! Hey, it has to do with that Duck guy...

At any rate, I have no idea if the Duck guy--one Phil Robertson--is intelligent or not. There is no evidence to support a hypothesis that he plays chess against Deep Blue for fun, or trades academic barbs against that Hawking fellow.

The guy has demonstrably deep seated issues with reality.

In addition to his "fire and brimstone" sermonizing, his latest attempt to stay in the spotlight is by bloviating to Sean Hannity that ISIS members should be converted or killed.

Thoughtful Phil Isn't going to Iraq to do battle with the evil-doers, but he would seemingly send others to do the converting..or killing. Or whatever.

Thoughtful Phil also laughably states that "You think about it, most of the wars we've fought, they were not asymmetrical like this one." Uhh, what? EVERY war since the one where the US gained independence have been lopsided affairs*. That is, "asymmetrical."

Thoughtful Phil should go to Iraq and lead his army--with no weapons save for the Holy book--and do this deed for the country that still gives a public arena with which to spout his progressive views. For if he truly believes in The Holy Bible, righteous Phil cannot be harmed.

Barring his crusading pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the dude should just keep his trap closed. He really makes the rest of us seem like fools. Really. I wonder if Thoughtful Phil knows the meaning of narcissism?

* WWII was really both won by the Russians, and lost by Hitler; and his methamphetamine addled brain deciding to fight the war on two fronts. Good try, though.

Good Morning America mentions ebola!

Stop the universe from expanding! Just this AM, the awful morning "news"(??) television program gave few precious minutes of airtime to the West African ebola epidemic. Of course the sub-text is that l'épidémie most likely only got some airtime because..you guessed it..another American doctor has tested positive for ebola. Yes, a US citizen. GMA is the only TV news that I watch; and that is only because it what the television is tuned to during my morning wake-up coffee. At least the epidemic was acknowledged.

It is very sobering that my updated ebola case and fatality graph has proven to be eerily accurate.

I was going to link to an article that states what is abundantly clear to anyone following the outbreak in West Afice; that ebola cases are "likely increase in the coming weeks." I do not think that necessary.

However, I have found a new source of interesting data--at least potentially--related to all of the ebola outbreaks to date. This one too, is sobering. Africa: Banning Bushmeat to Stem Ebola Outbreaks Is Unworkable, Expert Says. A fascinating read. One need be wary of the "parinet zero" claim in the article. To the best of my knowledge, the 2 year old toddler has not been definitively identified as "patient zero," but was, at least certainly was among the first to break with ebola.

Both linked articles have some nebulous data on ebola's circulation in nature, and while bats--especially fruit bats--are almost certainly a primary source as ebola virus antibodies have been found in fruit bats, it may be that there are other hosts as well. Fruit bats are a confirmed natural host. The bushmeat piece is my ebola addition for this entry. The other stuff is all filler.

iCloud may have been hacked by ancient trick

According to reports A simple brute force attack seems the likely culprit at this point in the investigation. That'is simply inexcusable. The basics of a brute force attack are repeated password guessing until the attacking program and computer hit upon the correct password. It's really only a matter of time if no lock-outs are issued after say..three tries. That's a pretty standard number of attempts before an account lock-out is issued. The iCloud HAD no such measure in place.

I remember discussing this kind of simple attack 15 years ago with a then 13 year old programmer from across the country. 15 YEARS AGO! He wanted me to write a password generator for him to break into a single not for profit website of no real substance. Of course I did not even give him a hint as to where to start, but he ultimately hacked the forums of the site. The lad was so proud. Kids..Sheesh!

BTW, I have no idea who Dam Kaminsky--chief scientist for Whiteops.com--is, but whatever he is smoking, I would give it a trial.

The iCloud hole was an airplane hangar door. The simplest answer is most often the correct one. No desktop compromise was needed. None is indicated. Ockham's Razor applied to computer forensics. Hackers being hacked? Nahhhh!

If it turns out that this Kaminsky bloke is correct, I will eat my hat, your hat, and anyone else that wants a hat consumed.

In humorous and related news Apple stock was actually up a bit last I checked. Oh what delicious irony.

"Man, those are some frigid bitches"

On the lighter side* it is being reported that famous Russian geckos sent into orbit to do "the nasty" have all returned freeze-dried. Some headlines are, or course, better than others. My favorite bit of journalistic hooliganism is this: Russia in Mourning over the Death of Its Space Love Geckos. Unsurprisingly to me, fruit flies..you know it just has to be Drosophila melanogaster...on the same flight did not expire. I had to breed those little bio-markers of evolution many a time, and the only time I was able to extinguish them was when I knocked them out with ether prior to sorting for traits and forgot about my brood over a weekend. Other than that, even my sorting damaged nary a one.

Fear not gentle reader, I still got top marks(98%?) in that biology class. I do not recall what I told the teacher about my fruit fly disaster, but it must have been a sound lie.

* I adore all forms of life. Okay, a lot fewer ticks and brain eating amoebae. I could also do without ebola virus which really is not alive on its own--so the side is only lighter as to being less dire than most of my posts as of late. I trust that this honest disclosure will restore my nearly universal adoration and awe of all things natural.

Yes. We suck at science, but money is not the fix Plus more on ebola and social issues

While this piece makes one of basic claims about science--that the US needs to invest in basic research--it also will not likely get basic research re-funded. Why? Because our lawmakers are largely scientifically illiterate, and cannot seem to simply fund basic research for they are in constant re-election mode, and have no sense of awe and wonder it instills to those that choose career paths in basic research.

Behind saving the habitabilty of the planet for future generations of H. sapiens, this is my number two issue.

We are not raising kids on the whole with anything remotely like the scientific and mathematic abilities to even have a real shot at a science major at even the undergrad level at a really fine school. No, political science does not count as science.

It does start at home. Parents cannot tell a child why the sky appears blue, so unless a child goes in search of real answers to these kinds of questions, they are given false answers at best, and at worst 'blown off' by their parents. I grew up in a household where one parent rejoiced in my constant questioning, whilst the other only appreciated manual labor and other provincial pursuits. Yes. I was a precocious pain in the ass. But I keep asking questions 50 years later.

Today's ebola message..

Okay, so it is not aboout ebola per se, but concerns itself with West African countries suffering food shortages due to panic buying and other factors. In some of the poorest countries on earth, supply and demand still reign supreme. At this point it looks much like other price spikes wherein the costs increase in advance of unknown future supplies. *sigh*

I could put more down about health workers stricken with ebola--as well as their families--but you can find these things out for yourselves.

Opinions and data...on ebola.

I found two Op-Ed pieces today. One is spot-on accurate, and illustatrates the sociology involved in a thoughtful, lucid manner. An excellent read.

The other Op-Ed is penned by two 'infectious disease physicians,' and is somewhat more speculative, whilst illuminating a real disconnect between "Western Medicine" and that which is being dispensed in the ebola epidemic today.

I confirmed the CFR for Marburg in sub-Saharan Africa. Data here.

It is claimed by some(not by this author) than H. sapiens is an intelligent species. If we grant that, then we must also grant that altruistic behavior is most certainly not a universal given in the species. Sad, but I think that statement will stand up to close scrutiny.

Upload nude pics., and you're 'exposing' yourself...Der.

If you upload risque photos of yourself you may get burned. Sure, Apple has some explaining to do regarding iCloud security, but if people had less ego issues, this would not be an issue. Even if the paaswords to all these 'exposed' people were gleaned from different websites..and this is specious, Apple should use a combination of hardware authentication, as well as at least double authentication protocols. Making things simple for users also makes things simple for those that would like access to your data.

I do not like to promote software as I am developer, but using LastPass and having your passwords automatically changed every two weeks--or less frequently if you visit the site less frequently--is not a bad idea.

I am not terribly paranoid, but I now use the longest passwords a site will allow and if I lose my LastPass password, I would be pretty well screwed. Oh, my Lastpass password is updated on a 14 day schedule as well.

All public clouds are just that. Apple and others should use a three tries and lock the MAC address of the device attempting access out. There are lots of other ways to verify user credentials, but people want simplicity. This is not a good thing for security. The linked article does seem to excuse Apple, but that is foolishly premature. As of early this AM, Apple had yet to comment.

I do not know how the iCloud was compromised, and neither does the author of the article.

Remember kids, do not post nudies anywhere where they might be compromised.

On Edit: According to this ZDNet piece, Apple has patched a security flaw in the too aptly named "Find My iPhone" service. Henceforth to be known as "Find Anything About Me Via My iPhone" service.

I should offer full disclosure: I have an Android phone running KitKat, but I have everything Google related set to "Ask Me" or NFW. My Google Drive acct. has three utterly useless docs enclosed, and I don't take photos with a cell phone. I have a DSLR and two CMOS pocket cams with which to take pictures....Picasa has no privileges. I KNOW Google knows lots about me, but for now I can tolerate their draconian terms of service agreement. 'Tis a sad day when Microsoft has by far the best ToS agreement.

Oh great..an open atheist is running for US Congress

I long for the good old days when being an atheist automatically excluded excluded one from even bothering to seek a high office in the US. In all seriousness it has always bothered me that a person that suffers from harboring one less god-belief than others was excluded from holding office in many states. As a demogrsaphic, atheists have exceedingly low rates of the kinds of social ailments that plague theists. Not believing in anything that does not pass muster in the realm of scientific scrutiny should be lauded. Thankfully, there are less theocratic societies where this is indeed the case.

I fail to see the need to label one a non-believer in any realm where science has said: "Well mebbe, but there ain't no evidence for such a belief."

All labels do is divide us at an absolutely critical time in history when we must be united in order to move forward on leaving the planet habitable for future generations of humans.

One will see that I squarely place science deniers into the 'magical thinking' camp. I have yet to meet a denier of scientific findings that is not biased by fore-determined conclusions. I always ask them the quantify their unbeleif in the findings of science, and I have never gotten even one equation out of any of them--and their numbers are not small. Living in New Hampshire with out 'first in the nation presidential primary' gives me terrific opportunities every four years to grill candidates and their surrogates regarding science literacy. In the past it was worse than I could imagine, but now I have resigned science literacy to the level of simply awful.

It really is nonsense that people that likely hold less magical thinking are pretty much excluded from being elected to high office. Oh well.

Even more ebola...

Now that Senegal has had its first confirmed ebola patient, that brings the number of the West African countries that have had at least one confirmed case to five. I should note that the Senegalese patient likely was infected in Guinea whist attending a funeral there and in assisted in taking care of two relatives with ebola.

Things are really getting out of control in many places as rioting in Guinea erupted after a rumor had spread that "we had sprayed the market[with Ebola virus] in order to transmit the virus to locals."

In The Gambia--where there have no confirmed cases of ebola as of this moment-- the WHO has sent material support to aid in suveillance of suspected ebola cases. The news is quite sparse at this juncture, but given The Gambia's size, a thorough examination of persons entering and leaving via roads and waterways does not seem unlikely. Well, ask and sometimes you get confirmation of your suspicions. The Gambia seems pretty well locked down. This is a very positive thing that was done prior to the WHO's new commitment to The Gambia.*

*I use "The Gambia" as that is the true name of the country. "Gambia" is probably acceptable--and when I was there in 1995 the natives did call it simply "Gambia," but I will go with current naming conventions.

One More Before I Call It..

"Poli-Sci"? Really, it only gets a mention due to funding by people that are largely unaware of science. *Heavy sigh* Oh, I am listening to Pink Floyd's terrific album "Meddle" as I type this, but am in no other way under the influence of psychedelic drugs. Other drugs may apply. By the way "Fearless" is my favorite Floyd song that rarely gets air play.
Moving right along....I had better finish this before I am swept away. My GF claims that my twice per year 'indulgences' are very cleansing. Perhaps.

The EU needs good science policy. But does that mean it needs a Chief Scientific Adviser? Bollocks!

What every group needs is an incorruptible being that has nothing more to prove. Since politicians everywhere seem to need harsh language--or a 10 meter cattle prod--in order to get off their duffs and actually do something, "listen the fuck up" does not appear to be too strong a way of phrasing. Insrall a Nobel Laureate with the requisite 170+ I.Q. and be done with it!

Okay, now I am really off.

I am totally off-base here, but....

...much like the equities markets, the low hanging fruit in the Real Estate(RE) market has been picked in most markets. People with a vested interest in the Northeast US continue to bang the drum that the market has not topped. This is not true in the Boston, MA market where the deals were to had in 2008-2009. Yes, yes, I am a real estate investor--as opposed to a speculator--and perfectly decent homes that sold for(I am using a unique situation here as I may buy the property) slightly over 200K in 2010 are not getting nibbles at 165K. There is NO easy 35K to be made here. The only reason I am posting this in my sci-rech blog is that Marketwatch is not playing well with any of my three installed browsers. Marketwatch has most of the story correct.

I just wanted to add my $0.01 to the comments section, but no dice.

Okay, I am done venting.

It continues to be an off day. Who would have thought that a card carrying materialist would be so bowled over by the loss of a feline friend? Not I. And yet, here we are. I hope to be back in the science game tomorrow. As for now, I fear that I can only inflict damage so I am off.

Peace be with you and yours,

Todd

I lost a dear friend last night, and other observations

My Cat Jed died last night. No, that's not an excessive use of caps. It is how I have referred to him over the past 16 years. My Cat Jed was stolid until the very end. I will miss him dearly.

In My Cat Jed's honor I planted six balloonflower(Platycodon grandiflorus) today after burying him in the family's pet cemetery. *Heavy Sigh*

In crass consumerism the Internet is awash with rumors concerning the iPhone6. It is a phone, people. The phrase "imagined appetite" immediately leaps to mind. Full disclosure: I have owned one Apple product. It was an iPod that was given to me by client. Being in technology, shiny and new is only impressive when it does something either 10x less expensive and/or 10x better than that which it is replacing. Otherwise, it is simple evolution and that is hardly reason for excitement in any but the biological sense.

I know that I accuse most everyone(hey, that's only 50.1%!) of the populace as being functionally illiterate when it comes to science and technology when science and technology have never been more important in our lives, but at least Canadians are interested in science. Calling the Canadian populace 'scientifically literate' is stretching that thread too thin.

Ironically, in a sidebar on the webpage containing the glowing report on Canadians and their relative scientific literacy, there is this: Canada’s math, science lag bad for economy, report says.

So, Canadians seem greatly interested in science, but they largely cannot do the maths.(nod to my British audience)

At any rate, Canada is helluva lot better off than we here in the US.

Science denial is worlds simpler than developing the tools to proffer quantifiable commentary on scientific issues.

Unfortunately, those least able to deny the findings of science are the quickest to deny that which they have no toolkit to deny via quantification. This anti-intellectualism without validation is one of the scariest things confronting all of us. Okay, enough about that..now onto the follies of science.

There are scientists that are so wedded to either a pet theory and/or what amounts to scientific dogmatism that they are as bad for progress as the science deniers. Thankfully, the scientific method ultimately prevails and new paradigms and deeper understandings are arrived upon. In science, showing that your peers are wrong is lauded. It is unfortunate that this adulation may come too late for an individual scientist.

I could keep flooding the Internet with nonsense about this topic, but I will simply give an illustration.

How Oswald Avery: Discoverer of DNA as genetic information carrier was never awarded a Nobel. Almost everyone thought genetic information had to be carried by some protein structure. Avery discovered otherwise. But his discovery was not immediately heralded. Oswald T. Avery, died in 1955. No posthumous Nobels are awarded. That is a shitty thing.

Fish teaches itself to "walk"...with disclaimers :)

This is really cool. I saw this yesterday, but didn't hit upon the correct article. Bichir fish have always been fascinating. I would put mudskippers in the same tent(it is a big tent!). I thought that this was going to be a simple Tiktaalik redux. Was I ever wrong.

Fish raised out of water develop steady walking gait, Canadian researcher finds . The most fascinating thing to me is that the fry forced into a terrestrial existence lost the ability to swim. Astonishingly, the terrestrial birchirs modify body posture AND some features of their anatomy in order to better locomote. In reading one finds that the fish used in the experiment were not raised generation after generation so that selection does not come into play. The fish have the capacity sans any breeding program. Bichirs of normal environmental rearing have the ability to "walk," but not nearly as well as the terrestrially raised brood in the experiment.

LaMarckian nonsense is not going on here. The abilities and structure changes are obviously available in the current fish's genome.

If this sort of thing interests you in even a wee amount, open the link, read more, and watch video of "walking" fish.

Oh, and I am not "dissin'" Neil Shubin et al's discovery of Tiktaalik. That discovery was monumental. The transition from fishes to tetrapods is one of the greatest moments* in the history of evolution. Tiktaalik also definitively demonstrated the predictive power of evolutionary theory.

Hey, a happy entry!

*Yes. I know it was more than a moment when measured against the timescale of a human life. In geological terms, it happened pretty fast.

You know you have issues when.....

....brain-eating amoebae have taken up residence in the municipal water supply.

Things really are linked. Just the other day I was going to post this similar story as a tie-in to global climate change.

Louisiana just can't catch a break.

Is it only a coincidence that incidence of N. fowleri seems to be closely matched to the Mississippi River system? Surely I cannot be the only person to have made this observation. No. I am not speculating that "Old Man River" is a natural reservoir for brain-eating amobae. I shall remain mute on the subject until further evidence sways me one way or the other. Minnesota is the anomalous state where one wouldn't expect cases of a warm water amoeba...and yet.

I truly hope that the situation in LA is taken care of post-haste.

And now for something completely different.. Mosquito vector illnesses!

No Lyme and no ebola..this time.

I live in central New Hampshire, USA and vector-borne pathogens we got.

Eastern Equine Encephalitis(EEE) has been found in New Hampshire mosquitoes. Again. Oh, we still have our old friend West Nile Virus(WNV) about, and whilst it can be a really nasty infection, EEE is far worse.

It looks like both of these vector-borne pathogens are here to stay.

Just yesterday aerosol insecticides were again sprayed as people will no doubt be out and about this weekend--it is a US national holiday weekend.

To the best of my knowledge no 2014 confirmed cases of either WNV or EEE infecting humans. In fact, I am unaware as to any WNV having been found in 2014 in the state via the usual sampling methods.

Since I live a hundred meters from a large, slow moving river I do not even bother with DEET repellant. I treat my boots and clothing with a very weak permethrin solution. Permethrin is good protection against mosquitoes, and is really effective against those small arachnids which shall not be named in this entry.

Enjoy the outdoors!

More Ebola!

As I suspected(see most of my any entries concerning the West African ebola outbreak), things are likely far, far worse than the official reports that have simply implanted numbers in lieu of confirmation of additional cases. Now the WHO is reporting that the West African ebola outbreak could exceed 20,000 cases before it is extinguished. The dope:

The World Health Organisation said Thursday it aimed to reverse the spread of Ebola within three months, but warned that the caseload in West Africa's epidemic could eventually top 20,000.

In a new anti-Ebola plan, the UN health agency said it aimed to reverse the trend within three months, with the final aim of stopping "all residual transmission within 6-9 months".

It said the current case-count -- 3,062, with 1,552 deaths -- was likely several times lower than the actual number, and that the number of infections "could exceed 20,000 over the course of this emergency".

"This Roadmap assumes that in many areas of intense transmission the actual number of cases may be 2-4 fold higher than that currently reported," it said.

"It acknowledges that the aggregate case load of (Ebola) could exceed 20,000 over the course of this emergency," it added.

The plan called for a massive ramping up of efforts to contain and defeat the epidemic.

It put a price tag of $490 million on a six-month campaign, saying the money would need to come from WHO coffers as well as other aid agencies and governments.

Now that is sobering. The "final aim of stopping '"all residual transmission within 6-9 months"' is really eye opening as that time frame is to begin once the new influx of monies and personnel are in place and working.

I think that it can safely be said at this juncture that no one really knows just what the fuck is going on with this new strain of ebola and just how large of an issue this epidemic is becoming.

Since lots of my speculations do come to pass(anyone buy an Amazon Fire phone?) I will allow myself a bit of speculation here. This strain of ebola--with its nearly 400 mutations--has become more easily transmissible in human-to-human contact. I make no claim as to which route this transmission takes, but if one looks at the clues, one can see that it really does strongly appear different this time.

New strain. Staggering amounts of health workers infected, and once the mutations were published in Science, countries started pulling medical personnel out the embattled area. Now none of this is evidence of a new mode off transmission, but I must speculate every week or so about something.

So far I think that my observations concerning the West African Ebola Outbreak of 2014 have been quite accurate.

Oh, a couple of things.

Yesterday, I used the acronym "CFR" without an explanation. In that instance CFR stood in for "Case Fatality Rate."

I should add that my speculations are only that. I certainly hope that this new strain of ebola has not made the species jump into easy human-to-human transmission. That would be really bad. I only offer an easier mode as pure speculation backed up by no facts. I really, really hope that my speculation proves false.

More Ebola.

Yes. It is a new strain. Lots of mutations vs other strains.

he Ebola strains responsible for the current outbreak are likely to have a common ancestor, dating back to the very first recorded outbreak in 1976.

The researchers revealed the lineage responsible for the current outbreak diverged from the Middle African version of the virus within the last decade and spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone by 12 people who had attended the same funeral.

The team's catalog of 395 mutations (over 340 that distinguish the current outbreak from previous ones and over 50 within the West African outbreak) may serve as a starting point for other research groups.

"We've uncovered more than 300 genetic clues about what sets this outbreak apart from previous outbreaks," said researcher Stephen Gire.

"Although we don't know whether these differences are related to the severity of the current outbreak, by sharing these data with the research community, we hope to speed up our understanding of this epidemic and support global efforts to contain it."

This was reported in the journal Science, so it had to be vetted by true experts in the field. 395 mutations. Perhaps the transmissibility of this strain of ebola differs from those for which more is known.

No more ebola today. I promise.

No. I am not anti-gun. I am anti-stupid.

9 year old girl kills 'instructor' with Uzi on full auto. The now deceased 'instructor,' a Mr. Charles Vacca is hereby nominated for a Darwin.

Lest anyone think I am an anti-gun crusader, the evidence is not there. I held my Federal Firearms License(FFL) for 9 years. I had my own little shop as well. I was hardly Wal-Mart. I would not sell any firearm to perhaps 30% of my potential customers. Sure, it took time to fully explain The Second Amendment to the US Constitution to people that I did not believe neither trained well enough, nor sufficiently in control of their faculties to responsibly handle and care for a firearm, but I slept well every night.

I took--and take--the "well regulated" phrase of the Second Amendment in its proper context. Insufficient training and/or discipline were the two properties that I used to judge a person worthy or not to purchase any firearm.

I was fortunate enough to never have a real incident with a potential customer that even escalated to the raised voices degree. I handed out a lot of supporting documents.

I shuttered the store in 1998.

More Ebola.... From Guinea to the DRC

Things are seemingly very fluid on the ground in efforts to contain the West African ebola outbreak as people quarantined in Liberia trying to escape are reportedly being fired on using live rounds by that country's military. Simultaneously, foreign aid workers are being pulled, with Canada pulling a team out being but the latest extraction.

One of two ebola testing facilities in Sierra Leone has been shut down due to a Senegalese epidemiologist becoming infected at the lab.

Yes, I am now getting into the sociology of the epidemic. From all news reports it is maddeningly difficult to get a sense as to what the state of things really are in West Africa. The WHO has stated that health workers are becoming ill and subsequently dying at an "unprecedented rate."

One reads things like 'we're hopeful,' and 'it appears that the worst may be behind the outbreak,' and yet the situation on the ground is anything remotely like stable as of the time of this entry. One has to think that the WHO is putting the best face on public statements. Just what the reality is remains well guarded sets of data.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), it is still being claimed that the Congolese outbreak is a different strain of ebola. This is entirely reasonable given that--according to the WHO-- the two strains of ebola in previous outbreaks of ebola in DRC have been the devastatingly lethal Zaire strain(up to 90% motality rate) and the Bundibugyo strain(50% motality rate). Given the distance between the ongoing West African outbreak and DRC unless someone(s) made it across hundreds of miles of west and central Africa, this really does look like a separate event. Believe me, it was not easy to come to that conclusion given all the issues that Africa has had over the past 50 years. I would not put money on it either way. I still don't yet know for certain that "Ebola Guinea" is a new strain. How could I know?

I just got a distillation of news stuffs about the new DRC outbreak. Features:

13 Probable Ebola Deaths & 565 Suspect In DR Congo

Recombinomics Commentary 18:15
August 26, 23:00

· Declaration of the epidemic by the Minister of Public Health August 24, 2014
· 13 people died of the disease (CFR 54%), including five health workers, about 24 cases suspects (16 women and 8 men)
· 11 people segregated
· 24 cases (16 women and 8 men) of Ebola virus disease outbreak in the area of health Boende, from July 28 to August 18, 2014 · 80 contacts identified for monitoring
· 4 positive samples from eight after a second analysis INRB
· 565 suspected cases investigated with gastroenteritis, diarrhea and vomiting.
· Index case identified Ikanamongo (100 km Boende): a woman who died on August 11 after consuming bushmeat hunted by her husband and that has contaminated your doctor and husband.
· yet unidentified strain between Zaire and Sudan. Awaiting the results from the laboratory in Franceville (Gabon).

Pieces d' origine: If my French is bad, it is because my French IS bad.

I think that the data is mostly good as I just got the following headline: Ebola epidemic declared in Congo


I do not believe that I have ever posted that I have been to West Africa. I went on a multiple country trip in 1995. I went to Gambia(official language is English), Guinea, Senegal, and Mali. It was a combination of business and pleasure. It is not unclear to me just how spending time in Africa has colored my impressions of the ebola outbreak. I do know that I have always been fascinated in the natural world. If I had a clue as to what I wanted to do before committing to my academic training, I would not have chosen engineering. My working career has been a lot of fun, and highly rewarding financially, but I do not find it especially self-actualizing. While solving a vexing problem is not without its charms, I have rarely gotten ecstatic in my work. I feel metamotivated much of the time, just not while pursuing my vocation.