There’s a new viral pneumonia spreading around Western Ukraine at an alarming rate, described as “rather serious”. While the world’s concerns center around H1N1 at the moment, this is seemingly a new type of flu (or as the article says, “flue”) that has already claimed lives and has enough people sick with spread potential that emergency meetings are being called and people are being advised to stay home.
Learn more about the scare here.
Have you been swimming in Lake Havasu? While the man-made body of water is similar to many others, it’s been the one in the news. Recently, bacteria there entered through a child’s nose and slowly ate at his brain until he died. Cases are rare on a global scale, but often enough to freak people right out locally, prompting some calls to close the lake. It affects children, predominantly. Think of them!
You start with a stiff neck. Maybe, you think, you pulled or strained something while swimming, or playing. You were thrashing about, after all. In fact, that’s how the bacteria got up your nose. It’s the bacteria causing the headaches, not staying out in the sun for too long. How else could you explain the fever?
Then you know something’s wrong. Your consciousness starts to get affected. You behave differently. You hallucinate. You experience the cognitive effects of your brain being eaten inside out, and then you die. The Naegleria Fowleri bacteria thrive in hotter climates, so our polluting effects might increase the number of cases just like this. See, it’s fun when one problem connects to another. Global warming, temperature up, bacteria thrive, brains get eaten. Who knows wherein lies the first link of the destructive chain that wipes out the planet.
Twenty-three died from the bacteria from 1995 to 2004, but six died in the past year. What to do in the meantime? Keep water from going up your nose. And keep your pool clean. Not kidding with either of those.
See the rest in the original article.
The most common type of gorilla is on the verge of extinction. This is only partly because of massive amounts of poaching. The main culprit? Ebola. Remember Ebola? In its peak, it was the trendiest pandemic threat in town. Endearing phrases like “plague monkey” and “flesh-eating disease” were really coined for the first time. Then Outbreak went from the New Release section to the regular movie section, and we forgot all about it. Maybe witnessing our closest biological relative self-eaten into inexistence will remind us. Don’t try to wash your hands: it’s airborne!
Check out the original article.
So never mind the illness from space that the people of Peru had to endure. New scientific evidence gives us the lowdown on bugs in space. Apparently, Salmonella typhimurium bacterial bugs mutate, thrive, and get worse amongst the stars. Researchers noticed that mice were three times as likely to die from the new variations.
Good to know that even if we manage to get away from this planet before it’s completely ruined, we can still all die from sicknesses that actually work better off the planet.
Read more here.
On September 17th, a meteorite crashed near a village in Peru. As if the thought of large chunks of space rock smashing into your neighborhood wasn’t enough to scare you, the thing is emitting toxic fumes that are hospitalizing people, inducing vomiting and headaches.
This straight-out-of-bad-science-fiction scenario’s still in the mystery stage, so even though the numbers affected are minimal so far, we can always imagine the worst. Here we are, betting on a massive comet slamming us into a dino-legacy, and the bloody thing’s got the nerve to bring along a mysterious illness. It’s that insult to injury overkill, like Superman being able to shoot molten-hot laser beams from his eyes even though he’s already got incalculable strength and speed, and is indestructible. Unless, of course, Kryptonite falls from space and lands near him and he gets sick and barfs. Hmm. Don’t trust space rock.
Here’s the original story.
