Word: strained
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...epidemic, they decided that it was too dangerous to follow the twin paths of traditional vaccine development--treatments based either on inactivated or weakened viruses. There is simply no way to guarantee that the viruses in a vaccine made of inactivated HIV will remain inactive. Similarly, any merely weakened strain of HIV might still overpower the human immune system. Because of the all too likely prospect that the resulting HIV vaccines would cause the very disease they were supposed to prevent, most scientists do not plan to pursue the old-style approach any further...
...that really terrifies the experts is influenza--not the ordinary sort, which kills tens of thousands each year, but a new strain that could cause a worldwide pandemic and kill tens of millions. The virus itself is not all that deadly: unlike Ebola or hantavirus, it kills only a small percentage of those who get it. But unlike those two more horrific diseases, the flu is so contagious that nearly everyone gets it. That's what happened in 1918, when 20 million people died. Says Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's influenza branch: "We can say with certainty that...
When that awful time does come, the CDC will be ready. Samples of the new strain will be rushed to the CDC's complex in Atlanta, essentially the Pentagon of the nation's disease-fighting armies. Influenza work goes on in a place known as Building 7, but virtually every other disease organism is imprisoned and studied inside Building 15, a massive edifice that sits a bit apart from the other structures. It has only one entrance, monitored constantly by cameras and motion sensors. Its door opens only to those carrying specially authorized magnetic cards. There is reason for such...
...serious groin hernia, surgeons generally stitch in a synthetic screen to cover a tear in the abdominal wall from which a portion of the intestine may protrude. Now, however, they can simply plug the opening with a cone-shaped mesh device. Plugging rather than patching the hole causes less strain on the surrounding tissue and reduces the extent of both surgery and recovery time...
...leader, what makes seismic events so destructive is not just that the earth moves but the speed with which it does so. In many quakes the crustal movement that leads to shaking takes only seconds to unfold, sending energy exploding in all directions. But recent analysis of data from strain gauges along the San Andreas Fault reveals that four years ago, a slip occurred that took a week to play out. Such slow sliding all but eliminates an earthquake's quaking...