“The humble slug may not be considered the most popular or attractive of creatures. But one gastropod in particular was responsible for establishing the most important precedent in legal history.” The Scotsman

‘Dual source’ caused Aids-like virus:

A genetic study of SIV – the Aids-like virus that infects monkeys – suggests that HIV – the virus that causes Aids in humans – came about through the combination of two viruses in chimpanzees.

Chimps could have been infected by other SIV-type viruses when they preyed on monkeys.

The study confirms what has been established about the origin of Aids: it emerged from the forests of western Africa some time in the last century.

Humans caught it from chimpanzees when they ate them as food, or became exposed to their blood in rituals. BBC

Person-to-person cases of monkeypox suspected: A nurse and a medical assistant in Wisconsin who cared for patients with monkeypox infections have come down with symptoms suggestive of the disease, and so has the boyfriend of the medical assistant, raising concerns about person-to-person transmission in this less virulent ‘cousin’ of smallpox. Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Debates about the possible efficacy of smallpox inoculation aginst the spread of the disease are beginning. Discussion of the nontrivial risks of the inoculation, which had been couched in terms of the theoretical risk of a bioterrorist attack with the smallpox virus, must now be reframed in terms of a real, although lesser, threat situation.

Note, as well, that the monkeypox infection shares with most recent emergent diseases the fact that its origins were in a jump from an animal reservoir. Along with HIV (as discussed above), the SARS virus, Ebola and related hemorrhagic fevers, Hantavirus share that characteristic as well. With the control of infectious diseases being the medical success story of the 20th century, it might make sense that the most significant disease challenges leap out of the dark at us in this manner. On the other hand, does preoccupation with ‘sexy’ novel infections divert our attention from real public health emergencies of much wider scope, such as HIV/Aids, antibiotic-resistant strains of more common ‘bugs’, and the resurgence of tuberculosis and STDs (where the issue is more one of the political will to allocate resources properly rather than the scientific know-how to address the disease process)?

Happy birthday, Willy.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Are you paraskevidekatriaphobic? While the word apparently dates from 1992, the phenomenon has a long heritage. According to one source, 17 to 21 million Americans, 8% or so of our population, are affected to one extent or another, and it costs the U.S. economy up to $750 million in lost revenues annually. —Why? —How? The Guardian and Salon also have something to say on this matter.

Related:

Here’s a quiz to see how superstitious you are. Its queries include a number of superstitions I had not even been aware existed.