Filed under: Health, NPR, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Organ transplantation used to be purely the stuff of Science Fiction. Now it is fairly routine, though still problematic due to the need for powerful immunosuppressants in most cases in order to avoid rejection. And there is a constant need for donor organs, which has also led to a couple of other staples of Science Fiction: cloning and organ farms.
[Mild Spoiler in next paragraph.]
I use both cloning and organ farming as a plot element in Communion of Dreams, which is revealed with the discovery of Chu Ling’s real history. Scientists have been working on cloning replacement organs, and there have been fairly solid reports of real organ farming (harvested from executed prisoners) to come out of China (one of the reasons that I used China as Chu Ling’s home). But cloning organs hasn’t been solved yet, and even if you have vast sources of donor organs, transplantation is still problematic due to tissue rejection.
Thankfully, scientists tend to be more innovative than writers, and have sought other solutions to the problem of replacement organs. One case I heard about last night on NPR’s All Things Considered uses an actual solution containing an active ingredient in shampoo:
Researchers Grow a Beating Heart
A custom-built replacement organ sounds like science fiction, but researchers working in Minnesota have figured out a way to construct a beating rat heart in the lab.
***
Taylor and her colleagues knew that when nature builds a heart, the cells attach to a kind of scaffold, or frame, made of things like proteins. “It’s basically what’s underneath all of the cells, the tough part that the cells make to hold each other together,” she says.
The researchers decided to see if they could take a dead heart and remove all of its cells, leaving this scaffold behind. The scientists thought they could then use the scaffold to construct a new heart out of healthy cells.
How did they remove all the original cells? With soap:
He tried enzymes, but they dissolved the heart. Other chemicals made the heart swell and change shape. Then one day, Ott grabbed a chemical known as SDS. “It’s a regular component of shampoo,” he says. “It’s a soap.”
At first nothing seemed to happen. Then, patches on the heart began to turn white. The red part, the meaty part, was disappearing.
“You can see the detergent working and making the heart literally translucent so it turns into a jellyfish sort of appearance,” says Ott, who explains that it looks just like a jellyfish shaped like a heart, with all the organ’s intricate 3-D structures.
Read the whole thing, and there is video there as well showing the process. Simply fascinating.
This is the thing that I love about science – a willingness to try crazy ideas, to experiment, to learn and then apply that learning to new problems in ways which could not have been foreseen at the start. And it is the thing I envy about science, because had I proposed such a procedure/technique in my book, it would have been considered absurd and dismissed by most readers.
Bravo to the scientists and researchers.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Blade Runner, BoingBoing, Hobbits, movies, Paleo-Future, Peter Jackson, Philip K. Dick, Predictions, R. Buckminster Fuller, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Tolkien, Wired, Writing stuff
What do you visualize when I say “Hobbit”?
How about “Blade Runner”?
Chances are, in both cases you had a mix of images you thought of. But I would wager that you had at least one architectural image both times: of a ‘Hobbit Hole’ and of the Tyrell Corporation’s vast pyramid. In both cases the iconic images help to anchor us in an alternate reality, whether it is Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Ridley Scott’s dystopian LA of 2019. (I’m sorry to say I don’t remember how much description of architecture Philip K. Dick had in his novel from whence Blade Runner is drawn – mea culpa.)
Odd or (paleo-) futuristic architecture has been a common device to help create a sense of setting for SF and fantasy just about forever. Descriptions in text, or images used in movies, quickly communicate that the setting is something different than our everyday world. And even before you get into a book or movie this works. With a movie poster or a book cover the visual image of architecture can instantly convey something about content to the viewer, and when it is well done it both informs and intrigues, and can come to symbolize or summarize the entire story the director or author wishes to tell.
I use architecture this way in Communion of Dreams. There are descriptions of how the US Settlement Authority offices reflect the passive defenses of the chaos following the fire-flu, of how they also incorporate some elements of the new building technologies from space colonization. There are descriptions of the colonies themselves, and of the space stations (both old and new), not to mention Darnell Sidwell’s Buckminster Fuller style dome habitat. There are even descriptions of how homes have evolved somewhat, adapting to a more communal style and drawing on the resources of huge numbers of abandoned buildings.
But the book opens with a small research facility in the ‘buffalo commons‘ out on the Great Plains prairie. I don’t give a lot of description of the station in the book (perhaps that’s something I should change . . . hmm), but envision it as a small, modular unit which could be relocated easily if necessary. Perhaps something like this. Or this. Or even this.
Those are all from a Wired column by Rob Beschizza titled “Small and Fabulous: Modular Living as it Should Be.” (Via BoingBoing.) I can’t say that I would really want to live in any of the dozen designs profiled in the article – but I am a spoiled American in an 1883 Victorian home with about a dozen rooms. Realistically, most of the world lives in much smaller spaces. And when you start considering the cost of transporting materials and managing environmental controls in space, then some fairly radical changes will be necessary.
Architecture, like any art, is a reflection of the society which produces it. Of course, until an architectural style is widely adopted it cannot be said that it is representative of society. As interesting as the various modular homes in the Wired article are, I cannot imagine that they will become emblematic of our society anytime soon. But because of that, they’d be perfect for use in, say, a film adaptation of Communion of Dreams. I wonder what Peter Jackson will be up to once he is done overseeing the production of The Hobbit in 2011 . . .
Jim Downey
“She’s a strong woman,” said Lisa, our regular hospice nurse. We were standing out in front of the house, talking the way people do at such times, in spite of the 11 degree temperature and bit of cold wind. Neither my wife nor I had coats on. But it didn’t matter at that moment.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I came downstairs this morning, noted that there wasn’t a time marked on the blackboard in the kitchen. I went into the front room, where the health aide who stays here overnight three nights a week was waiting. I glanced at the monitor, heard my MIL snoring lightly.
The aide, Ruth, glanced at it as well, and then back at me. “She never called to get up to use the toilet.”
“Not at all?”
“Nope. She’s turned over or shifted around a couple of times, but never seemed to wake up at all.”
“Huh.”
“She done that before?”
“Not in recent history.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
We made it through the holidays. I kept thinking that I would write about how my MIL was doing, but everything seemed so unsettled, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. First Christmas, with my wife’s brother and his family over for a big meal and to exchange presents. That went fine, and my MIL seemed to enjoy herself, enjoy the company. But after her nap she had forgotten entirely that anyone had been to visit.
Then she had good days and bad days. Days when she mostly slept, days when she seemed to be tracking things around her pretty well, days when even simple words escaped her understanding. Fever would spike for a day, then back to normal for two. There were no trends that were easily identifiable.
New Years eve we mostly ignored. My MIL wasn’t aware of the date, and my wife and I weren’t up for doing anything. With the home health aide coming to stay overnight that night, we just did the usual routine, went to bed as normal – and I was asleep by 10:30. A friend teased me about it by email the next day, said I was getting old. I was grumpy, somewhat resentful in my reply. I’m often grumpy these days, due to the stress. I’m glad most of my friends understand.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Lisa came into the bedroom, set down her things, handed over the package of Depends for my MIL. Hospice covers everything, even that. My wife helped her mom sit up on the edge of the bed as I opened the drapes for the large double window.
Lisa pulled the wheelchair over to the side of the bed, settled herself, and began going through her usual exam, chatting pleasantly with my MIL all the while assessing her condition, asking us questions about how she had been doing the past week. As usual, she found it difficult to get a solid pulse when taking my MIL’s blood pressure, then her brows knit together for a brief moment. “78. Only number I can get.”
She looked from MIL to me and my wife. “Has she been sleeping long?”
“No, she just laid down after breakfast and getting dressed about five minutes before you got here.
Lisa nodded, continued the exam. But she was being a little more thorough than usual, checked my MIL’s fingernails closely, then her toenails. Listened carefully to her lungs, timed her heartbeat for a long time, tested the elasticity of the skin on the back of her hand. Asked about how much my MIL was drinking, kidney and bowel function. All the while smiling and interacting with my MIL, keeping her happy and engaged.
“How much is she sleeping each day now?”
My wife and I looked at each other, calculated a moment. “About 16 hours a day, give or take an hour or so.”
Lisa nodded. She looked at my MIL, asked “Are you feeling OK?”
My MIL continued her smile. “Well, I think so.”
“Any questions?”
She looked to me and my wife for some assurance. “No, no, I don’t think so.”
“Good, good,” said Lisa, packing her things.
“MIL, do you want to lie down again for a while?” I asked.
“Yes, I think that would be nice.”
My wife got her tucked back in bed safely as I escorted Lisa out.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Part of my difficulty in writing about my MIL these past days has been confusion about not just what to say, but about how I felt about it.
I’m tired. So very, very tired. As I’ve mentioned, this time of year usually carries something of a depressive element for me anyway. With the lingering uncertainty about where we were at with my MIL’s condition, I’ve felt a certain confusion about what I want, what to do. It is easy to understand how a care-provider will become exhausted by the process of doing what we’ve done for the past four or five years. It is even easy to understand how they might look to the end with a certain anticipation – not wishing for their loved one to be gone, but knowing that with the end will come release from the burdens of care giving.
What may not be easy to understand is how the prospect of that is a little frightening. No, I’m not talking about the mechanics of death – that is fairly easy to understand when you are a mature adult with the experience of losing friends and family. Rather, it is fear which comes from a change of definition of who and what you are.
And it is fear of guilt, at least in my case. Guilt over whether I could have done more, guilt over wanting to be free of the burden of care-giving.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Are you finished with lunch?” I asked my MIL, as I came into the kitchen. I had been in my office, writing this entry.
“Yes. But I need someone to unblock the wheels.”
We have to keep her chair secured with a 2×2, otherwise she’ll try and leave the table. I set down her after-lunch meds on the table after I removed the plate for her lunch. “Oh, I can take care of that. Here, you need to take your pills.”
“Oh, OK.” She took her pills.
“Ready for a lie-down?”
“Yes, I am.”
I got her away from the table, removed her bib, and wheeled her into her bedroom. She used the toilet in there, then I helped her into bed. As I was tucking her in, she looked up me and said, “thank you for that delicious lunch!”
“You’re welcome. Have a good nap and call when you are ready to get up.”
And as I walked out, closing the door softly behind me, my eyes filled with tears.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I escorted Lisa out, after the examination. “I take it you see something?”
We walked down the front steps. “She’s declined. There’s congestion in the lower lobes of her lungs, and they sound rough all throughout. The low blood pressure and high pulse rate – it was over 110 – is not a good sign.”
“How was her heartbeat? Same irregularities as before?” I asked, as my wife came out to join us.
Lisa looked at my wife. “Yes, but hard to tell, her heart is beating so fast it kind of covers it up.”
“What do you think?”
“She’s close. The end could come at any time. Hopefully in her sleep.” Lisa said it in a way that was plain, honest, but sympathetic.
I nodded, looked back up at the house, the flags waving on either side of the front porch. “We were surprised she made it to new year, frankly.”
“She’s a strong woman.”
I nodded, looked at my wife. “She is, indeed.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Filed under: Connections, DARPA, Expert systems, General Musings, James Burke, Music, Predictions, Science, Society, Survival, tech, Writing stuff, YouTube
I’ve mentioned previously the work of science historian James Burke. This past weekend I finished watching the last couple of episodes of his ground-breaking series Connections. Overall, you would probably enjoy watching the series, and will find a lot of chuckles over what was “high tech” in 1978 versus the reality of what we have today. But the closing bit was just stunning – it was a prediction of the need for and use of the Internet before DARPA had even begun to let the cat out of the bag. Here’s the last ten minutes:
In particular the bit that starts out at about 5:00 is the culmination of his entire thesis about change – that understanding how things change is the key to understanding everything. At about 6:45 is this remarkable passage (transcribed myself, since I couldn’t readily find it online – how’s that for irony?):
Scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion and ideology. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology, they have begun to know that they don’t know so much, and if they are to have more say in what happens in their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge they know exists and that they don’t possess.
And by ‘helped towards that knowledge’, I don’t mean give everybody a computer and say “help yourself.” Where would you even start? No, I mean, trying to find ways to translate the knowledge, to teach us to ask the right questions. See, we’re on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don’t have access to it as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb, and blind.
Digital divide, anyone? Anyway, I find it just fascinating that Burke was so dead-on in his prediction of the Internet, even if he didn’t have the term for it, and yet even he failed to understand how phenomenally all-encompassing it would be. Whereas he thought that it would be impossible to just give people access to the information and say “go to it”, that is exactly what we’ve got – and self-organization of information and resources like Wikis make that information understandable, not just accessible.
When, as often happens, I feel somewhat pessimistic, that our greed or violent tendencies will outstrip our maturing as a culture/species, it is helpful to come across something like this. And I think that is why I read SF, and have written Communion of Dreams: because there, with all the ugliness and human folly, there is nonetheless room for hope. Look at what we’ve done in just the last thirty years – what more can we accomplish in the next forty, if we don’t destroy ourselves?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Comics, Humor, Jeff Bezos, Kindle, Predictions, Publishing, tech
Berkeley Breathed echoes my opinion of e-books in today’s Opus strip.
Jim Downey
(Hat tip, ML!)
Filed under: Daily Kos, Flu, General Musings, NPR, Nuclear weapons, Pandemic, Politics, Predictions, Press, Religion, Science Fiction, Society, Violence
I usually save the ‘political’ stuff for UTI or dKos. And, for the most part, I intend to continue that policy even through what promises to be a very ugly election year here in the U.S.
But I want to chat here about this morning’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. Why? Because it ties in with Communion of Dreams a bit. And because I think that the news really should be examined more widely than in just ‘political’ or ‘news’ forums.
First, the Communion connection. [Mild spoilers to follow next paragraph.]
In the “history” of the novel, following the chaos of the world-wide pandemic flu, I have an unspecified regional nuclear war in Asia. The characters reference it in terms of the state of things in China and Chu Ling’s health. I kept the specifics of it rather vague, since I see about a dozen different ways that such insanity could easily occur, involving China, India, Taiwan, Japan, North and South Korea, and Pakistan. And, once started, such a regional conflict could easily draw in more than the initial combatants, depending on exactly what the alignment of allied countries was at the time. This would further cripple the economic powerhouses of Asia, and could be part of the motivation the Japanese would have for seeking to establish a colony on Mars.
OK, that’s fiction. I actually worry that reality could be worse. Worse? Yeah – rather than ‘just’ a regional war, this could precipitate a wider war, or draw in the U.S. in our current paranoia about Islamic fundamentalism.
Now, why do I say this? I’m not an expert on Pakistan’s political situation. In fact, I’d readily admit that I do not understand even all that I know about Pakistan’s current political situation – and what I know is quite limited. But Pakistan is only one part of this puzzle. At least as important are other components – the deteriorating relationship between the US and Russia, a global recession on the horizon, ongoing tensions of every variety in the Middle East, and our own jingoism and aforementioned paranoia here.
To sum it all up, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. It is the exact same sort of feeling I had when I heard of another assassination of a political figure several years ago: Ahmad Shah Massoud. It’s doubtful that you recognize the name. But maybe this will ring a bell:
Massoud was the target of a suicide attack which occurred at Khwaja Bahauddin on September 9, 2001. The attackers were two Arabs, Dahmane Abd al-Sattar and Bouraoui el-Ouaer, who claimed to be Belgians originally from Morocco. However, their passports turned out to be stolen and their nationality Tunisian. The assassins claimed to want to interview Massoud and set off a bomb in a belt worn by the cameraman while asking Massoud questions. The explosion also killed Mohammed Asim Suhail, a Northern Alliance official, while Mohammad Fahim Dashty and Massoud Khalili were injured. The assassins may have intended to attack several Northern Alliance council members simultaneously.[citation needed] Bouraoui was killed by the explosion and Dahmane was captured and shot while trying to escape. Massoud was rushed after the attack to the Indian Military hospital at Farkhor, Tajikistan which is now Farkhor Air Base. The news of Massoud’s death was reported almost immediately, appearing in European and North American newspapers on 10 September 2001. It was quickly overshadowed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, which proved to be the terrorist attack that Massoud had warned against.
The timing of the assassination, two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, is considered significant by commentators who believe Osama bin Laden ordered the assassination to help his Taliban protectors and ensure he would have their protection and cooperation in Afghanistan. The assassins are also reported to have shown support for bin Laden in their questions of Massoud. The Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Mujahideen leader Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan Wahhabi Islamist, have also been mentioned as a possible organizers or assisters of the assassins.[19] Massoud was a strong opponent of Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan. The assassins are said to have entered Northern Alliance territory under the auspices of the Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and had his assistance in bypassing “normal security procedures.”[20]
So, there it is. An earlier attempt on Benazir Bhutto raised suspicions that the Pakistani security forces were involved. The method of attack was similar this time around, and only different from the assassination of Massoud in scope. Pakistan is struggling with democracy, martial law had just been lifted (and may actually be declared again by the time I am done writing this), there are known elements in the Pakistani government which are supportive of the Taliban (and Osama bin Laden), and they have nuclear weapons.
When I heard the news of Bhutto’s assassination this morning on NPR, I flashed back to that moment in September of 2001 when I heard of Massoud. And a chill ran up my spine.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Astronomy, Carl Sagan, Carl Zimmer, Cassini, Health, Hospice, Mark Twain, Predictions, PZ Myers, Saturn, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Space, The Loom, Titan, Writing stuff
*This post previously ran at UTI last year. And while some of the personal details mentioned in it have changed – I did indeed keep that promise to tweak my manuscript, obviously, and things have continued to progress with my MIL – the sentiment is the same.
Jim D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been a hell of a day. Not as bad as some, perhaps, but as far as routine days go, not the sort you want to pop up often in the queue. It started with my mother-in-law being ill. Now, most adults know how a young child (either their own or one they’ve babysat) can be when sick. Think intestinal bug. Think explosive diarrhea, of the toxic/caustic variety. Poor kid doesn’t understand what’s going on, or how to best cope with their misbehaving body (if they are capable of that on their own yet). Then picture that not in a toddler, but in a 95-pound woman well into dementia before the effects of dehydration and fever kick in. Took my wife and I two full hours to get her and the bedroom cleaned up.
And then I was on deadline to write my final column for my newspaper. Yeah, my *final* column. My decision, and if I want to go back the paper will be glad to have me. But because of the demands of care-giving, I could not adequately keep up with the art scene in my community (what I wrote about – weird to see that in the past tense). And I was feeling a little burned out with it as well. But still, closing off that particular chapter of my life was somewhat poignant.
So it’s been a day. Which is all just prelude to explaining that one of the refuges I seek after such a day is one of my “regulars”. Typically, it’s Twain, likely his Roughing It, which I have long considered some of his best and funniest work. But tonight, I turn to another old friend I never met: Carl Sagan, particularly his book Pale Blue Dot.
I’ve said before that I’m not a scientist. Which is perhaps why I don’t have some of the same quibbles that many scientists have with Sagan. But I really respect someone who can take scientific research and knowledge and present it in a form an intelligent layperson can understand. Stephen Jay Gould could do that for me. PZ Myers does it for me. So does Carl Zimmer. I could name others, but these are people I respect. In that same way, I really respected Carl Sagan, who I knew more as an author than as the host of of the PBS series, most of which I missed in its initial broadcast. Sagan helped introduce me to whole areas of science I had never considered before, and his considerable human decency in his atheism helped me understand that my own misgivings about religion were not an indication that I was lacking in morals or ethics.
So it was that when I started to write my first novel, Communion of Dreams (unpublished – yeah, yeah, I know I need to finish tweaking the mss and send it out again), I set most of the action on Saturn’s moon Titan, as a tribute to Sagan. Sagan had formulated a theory as to the nature of Titan’s atmosphere (that it contained a complex hydrocarbon he called “tholin”) which accounted for the rusty-orange coloration of the moon. His theories were pretty well borne out by the Huygens probe, by the way, though he didn’t live long enough to know this.
So tonight, on the tenth anniversary of his death, on a day when I’ve been through my own trials, I will nonetheless raise a glass, and drink a wee dram of good scotch to the memory of Carl Sagan. And I’ll promise myself, and his memory, that I’ll get that manuscript tweaked and published, if for no other reason than to honor him.
Here’s to Carl: Sorry you had to leave so soon.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Jupiter, Man Conquers Space, movies, Paleo-Future, Phil Plait, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Writing stuff
It is said that it was a single photograph taken by one of Columbia’s crew during Christmas 1961 that changed the course of history. Showing the Earth from the perspective of the Moon changed the mind of the commander of Eagle One from claiming the Moon in the name of the United States (as required by his military commanders) to claiming the Moon for all mankind. After Eagle One’s touchdown in July 1963, followed closely by Eagles Two and Three, the Moon becomes a new and vigorous outpost of humanity. Successive missions range far and wide over Earth’s satellite, discovering sites that in the decades to come would become bases, sources for mining resources, and even a large colony.
Celebrating the early history of space exploration and eventual exploitation, leading up to the recent landings of three manned missions on Mars is a fantastic new documentary: Man Conquers Space.
Wait a second . . . say what?
Via Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comes news of the Paleo-Future project, an excellent alternative-history of the middle and end of the 20th century. From the website for the project:
This film is based on an alternative timeline to the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era of reality – it is based on the premise that all that had been proposed in the early 1950’s in Collier’s actually came to pass – and sooner than they expected.
Through the expert use of special visual effects and computer-generated imagery (CGI), the world of wonder and imagination expressed though Collier’s has become real. The film Man Conquers Space looks like a documentary made today, and is peppered with archival footage from the dawn of the space age during WWII, through to today, narrated by the people who were there – the engineers, the astronauts, the scientists, the visionaries, the politicians.
Wow. This sort of alternative history is what I have done as the background for Communion of Dreams, leading to a more robust space-faring tech by our own time, and setting the stage for the colonization of other planets in our system by the time of the novel 50 years hence. Fascinating.
I’m very much looking forward to the release of this movie. But in the meantime, poke around their site and check out some of the clips they have posted online.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Climate Change, Daily Kos, Flu, Flu Wiki, Government, Health, movies, NYT, Pandemic, Predictions, Press, Richard Matheson, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff
It’s been a little while since I’ve written about our old friend H5N1 – the “Avian Flu” virus. Partly this is because I like to keep my posts varied according to topic (which is a nice way of saying my attention wanders a lot these days). Partly, though, is because the mainstream media pays little attention to the threat of this flu virus as a general rule. Which is curious, given the potential threat it presents and the amount of governmental effort going into tracking and preparation for a possible epidemic/pandemic. Even if you take the cynical view that our news is event/entertainment-driven, you’d think with the release of I am Legend, the latest adaptation of Richard Matheson‘s SF novel of the same name, would be a natural tie-in to news about the flu.
Because yes, there is indeed news about the flu:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia’s first outbreak of bird flu in people and determine if the virus could have been transmitted through human contact, officials said Sunday.
Four brothers — two of whom died — and two cousins from Abbotabad, a small city about 30 miles north of Islamabad, were suspected of being infected by the H5N1 virus, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl in Geneva. A man and his niece from the same area who had slaughtered chickens were also suspected of having the virus.
Another person in a separate case who slaughtered poultry in nearby Mansehra, 15 miles away, also tested positive for the disease, he said.
And if you saw either this diary on the front page of Daily Kos yesterday or check out the Flu Wiki, then you’d know that the situation is even potentially more troubling. From the Daily Kos diary:
See Flu Wiki’s Sunday wrap-up for the week’s documented human and bird cases, courtesy of the wiki volunteers who track cases around the world – helpful to CDC and WHO and other public health officials as they do their work (more than a few have written me that they stop there to get the morning news – this is netroots activism applied to public health!). Not only are there new human cases scattered throughout Asia (including Pakistan, Burma, China and Indonesia, all of whom are less than than transparent about internal news), there are also new bird cases of H5N1 in Germany, Poland, Russia, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia (and the hadj is soon, 1.5 million pilgrims expected).
Now, I’m not claiming that it’s the end of the world. Or even the end of what passes for civilization. But I do find it somewhat curious that this reality gets so little press attention, even when there is an obvious entertainment tie-in that can be made to the latest big-budget post-apocalyptic movie. Odd.
Well, when I do get back around to trying to find an agent or publisher for Communion of Dreams, at least I’ll be able to point to the ongoing threat of a pandemic flu that exists. Provided, of course, that the pandemic isn’t already underway.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 