Word: virality
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Duback's counterparts on the Harvard side are sophomores Chad Reilly and Stephen Hall. Hall was tabbed as the Crimson's top net-minder entering the season but has suffered from a lingering viral infection for much of the year...
...untold number of other varieties that have been preying on animals and plants since long before Homo sapiens appeared on earth. Indeed, the current AIDS epidemic is a grim reminder that these infinitesimal, bizarre creatures may be mankind's deadliest enemy. And scientists are warning that a perennial viral threat, the upcoming flu season, could be far more dangerous than usual -- more evidence that these tiny foes are responsible for a large share of human suffering...
Although the agents of all these infections remained a mystery, the first safe vaccine against a viral disease was developed in the 18th century by Edward Jenner, a doctor in rural England. Jenner noticed that farmhands who contracted cowpox, a mild disease related to smallpox, did not develop the more deadly disease. In 1798 he inoculated a boy with material from a milkmaid's cowpox sore, then demonstrated that the lad had developed immunity to smallpox...
Other viruses are responsible for longer-lasting effects. In so-called latent infections, the viral genes lie low, becoming active only intermittently, but throughout a lifetime. Herpes simplex (HSV), for example, makes its presence felt either in the form of genital lesions (usually caused by HSV-2) or as cold sores around the mouth (usually HSV-1), and comes under immediate attack by the immune system, which most of the time wins the battle...
...growing amount of evidence suggests that whenever viral infection leads to cancer or chronic disease, some sort of breakdown or weakness of the immune system plays a contributing role. For instance, organ-transplant patients whose immune systems have been suppressed by antirejection drugs have a greatly increased risk of developing virus-related malignancies. "There is a very intimate relationship between viruses and immunity," says Dr. Thomas Merigan of Stanford's school of medicine. "If our immunity is a little deficient for one reason or another, then we are more likely to have progressive disease...