Ted Alvarez on November 16, 2007 12:34 PM
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I'm used to streaking in the winter. People have their favorite wintertime activities -- hockey, skiing, etc. Mine just happens to be streaking, and the only residual negative was, apart from dodging the cops, catching a cold from a weakened immune system. But I'm going to have to rethink my activity now: Researchers at the CDC have discovered a particularly virulent strain of the adenovirus family of viruses that causes the common cold. Between March and May 2007, 140 people fell ill with adenovirus 14 in New York, Texas, Oregon and Washington state, and 10 of those people died. A few who died were described as "healthy, young adults."
[Gulp] That almost describes me, minus the "healthy" and "young."
Continue reading 'Common cold now causes sneezing, coughs and DEATH' >
Ted Alvarez on November 1, 2007 3:15 PM
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My personal theory was right all along -- lasers really are the answer to everything. Physicist Kong-Thon Tsen of Arizona State University and his son, Shaw-Wei Tsen, a pathology student at Johns Hopkins, singlehandedly redefined the idea of Take-Your-Son-to-Work Day by developing a superfast pulsing laser that can destroy viruses without harming healthy cells. In the future, this totally rad ultrashort-pulse (USP) laser could possibly be used to treat incurable viruses like HIV.
In the latest research, Tsen and his son demonstrated that their laser technique could shatter the protein shell, or capsid, of the tobacco mosaic virus, leaving behind only a harmless mucus-like mash of molecules.
The laser shattered the capsid at low energy: 40 times lower, in fact, than the energy level that harmed human T-cells. Other types of radiation, like ultraviolet light, kill microbes on produce, but would damage human cells.
Continue reading 'Superfast lasers could fix incurable viruses, everything else' >
