Word: outbreaks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HANTAVIRUS. In 1993 a six-year drought followed by heavy rains produced a tenfold increase in the population of deer mice in the American Southwest, leading to an outbreak of a deadly form of pulmonary hantavirus. The disease, which first appeared on a Navajo reservation, has since spread to 20 states and killed 45 people, nearly half of those infected...
PLAGUE. In 1994 a long monsoon in northern India followed by 90 consecutive days of 100[degrees]F heat drove rats into the cities. In Surat, they caused an outbreak of pneumonic plague. The ensuing panic killed 63 people and ultimately cost India $2 billion...
...civil war between the Palestinians and Hamas, a Lebanonization of Palestine. The Syrians would use this kind of unrest and violence as an excuse to move in, as they did in Lebanon, to "restore order." Israel would have to react, and this could set the stage for a serious outbreak of armed hostility that other Arab states would get sucked into, to make one last effort to wipe the Jewish state...
...will rise, perhaps uncontrollably. As illustrated by recent events, such conventional wisdom has become almost a self-fulfilling limitation. When growth rises above this level, investors, spooked by a belief that the Federal Reserve will soon be "forced" to raise short-term interest rates in order to prevent an outbreak of inflation, rush to sell bonds. This pushes long-term interest rates up. The result is that prospects for future growth are dampened. (And should the Fed do nothing, bondholders sell because they fear the central bank is no longer vigilant against inflation...
...around monkeys. Six years ago, several Philippine macaques imported by the Texas Primate Center in Alice came down with the strain of Ebola virus that had struck monkeys in Reston, Virginia, a year earlier, in a case that inspired the best-selling book The Hot Zone and the movie Outbreak. No humans got sick in either incident, but 100 animals had to be sacrificed...