A swarm that has now reached over 3,500 small earthquakesbegan last weekendoff the Oregon coast, but officials insist that they do notpose any tsunami threat, even though part of the affectedocean floor is similar to the area in the Indian Ocean areathat produced the magnitude 9 quake that caused lastDecember’s huge tsunami in southeast Asia. The small quakesoff the Oregon coast range from a magnitude of 2 to 4.
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The length of a man’s fingers reveals how physicallyaggressive he is. The shorter the index finger is comparedto the ring finger, the more aggressive the man. This is aresult of how much testosterone a fetus was exposed to inthe womb.
The Scotsman reports that University of Alberta (Canada)researcher Peter Hurd discovered this by studying thefingers of 300 men, then giving them tests that revealedtheir levels of aggression. In women, these two fingers areusually almost equal in length, but in men, the ring fingertends to be longer. In both sexes, the longest finger isgenerally the one next to the index finger (it’s the one wemake a certain nasty gesture with).
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The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control haswarned that the outbreak of bird flu in Asia is the singlebiggest threat facing the world today. Right now, bird flucan only be caught directly from infected birds?usuallychickens?but there are signs that the virus is evolving andmay soon be able to be passed from person to person. If thathappens, we could have an epidemic to rival the 1918influenza pandemic, which killed millions of people aroundthe world.
Researchers don’t know for sure that the H5N1 strain of birdflu will evolve into a form that can be passed from personto person. Right now, bird flu has a fatality rate of about75%, so if this form of flu spreads around the world, itcould be an international health disaster.
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Wonder why the Pope didn’t get a flu shot this year? If hehad, he probably wouldn’t have the flu right now. Theanswer? He probably doesn’t really have the flu.
The Pope receives the best medical care the world has tooffer, and despite the fact that there was a shortage of fluvaccine this year (there isn?t anymore), he would have beenat the top of the list to get vaccinated from the smallamount of vaccine that was available. Actually, he probablyDID get a vaccination; the breathing difficulties he’sexperiencing are most likely a result of aspirationpneumonia, a side effect of advanced Parkinson’s.
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