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E is for Ebola (Dallas TX)

ONW said:
The "Hot Zone" was written before Al Gore invented the interwebs, so I'm not inclined to take the author as an expert on infectious disease.
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Hahaha. Well somehow, Richard Preston got into the New Yorker....the horror. It's actually a really good read. I'm not sure where the hysteria over him came from but he does not think it's going to become airborne...that's just a worst case possibility. Looks like there's more hysteria over those types of comments than actual hysteria over Ebola.

According to the genetics, the virus is now 2 distinct forms. It's mutating fast enough that we'll have to keep sequencing the changes in order to keep up with identification. Some of the patients have a much higher particle load, which implies greater chance of transmission from fluid and possibly an earlier state of being contagious. That would suggest it's trying to increase it's lifespan over time. The original transmission critter remains unknown. Still lots and lots of unknowns.

One other tidbit....the rule of thumb for doctors is if unprotected, stay at least 6 ft away due to droplets/fluids.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-wars
 
PhDeac said:
It's weird for people who don't believe in evolution to claim that Ebola is all of a sudden going to go airborne.
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Equally weird for people who do believe in evolution to think it can't.
 
pourdeac said:
Equally weird for people who do believe in evolution to think it can't.
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This is one of the dumbest things I've read on these boards.
 
A widening gap in responses along party lines is largely due to a drop among Republicans, with 43 percent agreeing that humans evolved over time, down from 54 percent in 2009.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats (67 percent) and Independents (65 percent) said they believed in evolution.
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http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/

The micro/macro distinction is not worth pursuing. Not enough Americans, even among the educated, could even explain the differences. Not to mention I sincerely double there's a significant portion of the population that rejects macroevolution but believes in micro. Asinine line of reasoning.
 
Why is that? For many people, creationism and evolution are completely separate.
 
"There also are sizable differences by party affiliation in beliefs about evolution, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has grown. In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time, a difference of 10 percentage points. Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved, a 24-point gap."

i suppose this supports the point that pubs aren't getting smarter
 
That's a stunning change in just 5 years. And it's all from Republicans. A 3% change in Democrats is not significantly different from 2009. 11% is. I wonder if that is a difference can be attributed to the Tea Party movement and less dogmatic Republicans leaving the party.
 
good point

the change (the wrong way) is so drastic that at first i thought i read it wrong

eta - i was responding to ph if that wasn't obvious
 
PhDeac said:
That's a stunning change in just 5 years. And it's all from Republicans. A 3% change in Democrats is not significantly different from 2009. 11% is. I wonder if that is a difference can be attributed to the Tea Party movement and less dogmatic Republicans leaving the party.
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I think you nailed it.
 
I would bet most people's "understanding" of evolution is we "came from monkeys" which isn't even true so I'm not particularly persuaded that a lot of people are making meaningful distinctions between micro and macro evolution.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I would bet most people's "understanding" of evolution is we "came from monkeys" which isn't even true so I'm not particularly persuaded that a lot of people are making meaningful distinctions between micro and macro evolution.
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Some of us even came from the dwarf monkey:

ridiculously-cute-pygmy-marmosets-monkeys-photos3.jpg.pagespeed.ce.yMk8b5BNyb.jpg
 
Junebug said:
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you here. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I would bet that many college educated Americans grasp the difference in micro and macro evolution. (whether they would use that terminology is a different question, but I bet there is an awareness of the distinction.) I would also be willing to bet that, for a nontrivial portion of them, the distinction matters.
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Yikes. It's worse than I thought, then.
 
Junebug said:
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you here. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I would bet that many college educated Americans grasp the difference in micro and macro evolution. (whether they would use that terminology is a different question, but I bet there is an awareness of the distinction.) I would also be willing to bet that, for a nontrivial portion of them, the distinction matters.
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Yes, and those fucktards are the people who support Intelligent Design.
 
We are totally missing the opportunity to quarantine Texas.
 
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