Word: spreads
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...reason H5N1, which first cropped up in humans in 1997, has never given rise to a pandemic is that the virus does not appear to spread easily among people. It has been transmitted between humans only in rare cases, usually among family members in close conditions. But the fear has long been that if bird flu genetically mixed with human flu - in a process called reassortment, in which two flu viruses swap genes in an infected cell - it could create a new strain that is both deadly and transmissible, as illustrated by the new PNAS study. That's how many...
...PNAS study undermines that hope. The key difference in this study was the presence of a single gene from the H3N2 human virus: the PB2 protein, which gave the hybrid viruses the ability to spread easily among the lab mice. Scientists think the protein may allow hybrid viruses to grow more efficiently in the lower temperatures of the upper respiratory tract, from which the virus can more easily spread to others. (The H5N1 virus tends to infect the lower respiratory tract in humans, where it can't easily get out and spread...
...plot revolves around Shirley, a single mother with grown children, who learns at the outset that her cancer has spread and she has four to six weeks to live. Accepting the news with barely a flinch, she tries to tell her extended family, only to find they are too caught up in their own troubles to pay much attention. Among the brood: a son whose bitchy fiancée wants him to get into the dope trade so she'll have enough money to open a boutique and an older daughter who reveals that her younger "brother" is actually...
...fallen out of favor with investors because of its high government debt. In a sure sign that these troubles are serious, market analysts have assigned them a catchy acronym: PIGS, for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (or PIIGS if you include Italy). In early February, the panic began to spread beyond their borders, with markets flailing in Europe and then around the world...
...believe people get tired of helping--only that they get tired of feeling helpless. The challenge arises when we witness what health crusader Paul Farmer calls "stupid deaths": death in childbirth, death by mosquito, death, in the case of Haiti, from infections that spread when crushed limbs aren't amputated fast enough. Help never arrives fast enough because no two disasters are alike and chaos is an agile enemy. So I wondered how we would feel, after texting our $10 donations to the Red Cross and writing checks to Save the Children, still coming home night after night...