Word: germ
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...really knows. Ever since a small group of Democratic operatives enshrined the proportional allocation of primary delegates in its party rules 20 years ago, the possibility of a months-long death march to the convention has both reflected the Democrats' proudest egalitarian instinct - and hidden the germ of their worst nightmare. That latter possibility has now arrived. There is no road map for where the Democrats are going; there aren't even many roads. The candidates and their aides have only a dim grasp of how the endgame will unfold, though some maintain a healthy sense of humor about their...
...patch people up as they get sick, rather than keeping them from falling ill to start. But no Band-Aid is sufficient to handle a lethal pandemic, which some experts say is inevitable - if not imminent. Whether it's bird flu or some other deadly knock-out germ that eventually sweeps through the country, scientists and public-health researchers are trying to prepare for it now to ensure that everyone has a better chance of survival...
...Obsessive Compulsive Foundation convention in Atlanta last summer, Grayson, the Pennsylvania-based clinical psychologist, gave those in attendance who had OCD a quick taste of ERP. Inviting the ones in the audience with dirt and germ anxieties to come forward, he instructed them to sit beside him on the ballroom carpet. Then he told them to touch the carpet and bring their fingers to their lips. Left to themselves, most would have refused or, if they went along, would have then found the nearest bathroom and spent long minutes--perhaps long hours--scrubbing. Instead, they sat with Grayson...
...sprawl sends development - and money - farther from downtown, municipalities are looking to combat inner-city decay by keeping the streets flush with pedestrians. In Portland, that means implementing pilot projects such as an artist-designed public restroom in Old Town Chinatown. Many people still regard such municipal facilities as germ-ridden no-go zones or the grotty province of drug dealers and criminals. Regaining confidence in public restrooms would remove one obstacle to renewing the vibrancy of urban centers...
Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is the kind of germ that makes public-health officials go very pale when they talk about it. TB is bad enough, wasting bodies, ravaging lungs. The multi-- drug-resistant kind is worse. And XDR is the very rare but very awful strain that has all but exhausted the medical arsenal, leaving mainly faith and force as weapons: keep the patient isolated and hope that some treatment works against it, which happens in less than one-third of cases. The good news is that most people infected with the germ won't develop...