Tom's Corner of the World

In case you haven’t heard, there was a national election in Iran on Friday and Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a landslide right after the polls closed. Then people started noticing that the results were announced before it was even possible to count all the votes. The people there have been protesting on the streets since, while the opposition leader that ran against Ahmadinejad is under house arrest. The Iranian government has been attempting to stop all news reports and images from coming out of the country, but in today’s world, that’s a tall order. Videos have made their way to the internet that shows just how big the protests are:

It will be interesting to see if this is the start of real change in Iran away from theocracy or if this is another Tienamen Square where the government just cracks down ever worse afterwards.

Tom News iran, protest

Three years ago, I did a report for a technical communication class about avian influenza. When I made the report/presentation, one of the scary “what if” situations was if avian flu infected a pig and then infected a human. It appears that may have happened along with mutating to be human-to-human airborne. Pigs are a lot closer to humans anatomy-wise than birds; a lot of human drugs are tested on pigs and even some transplants are performed between the two. A strain of swine flu could be better adapted to kill humans than avian flu.

Currently in Mexico City, 60 people have died from this new strain of swine flu. About 8% of people that have been infected there have died. This isn’t in some backwoods part of Mexico with crap healthcare.  This was in Mexico City. For comparison, the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that shortened the average lifespan of the US citizen by 10 years had a mortality rate of 2.5%. In the US, 8 people have been infected with swine flu; 7 have recovered; 1 is too early to tell. This may be that the medical care is better in the US, but it could also be an entirely different strain. If it is a different strain, then this number could have no bearing on the Mexican version.

The Mexican cases have been resistant to shotgun-blast type vaccines like Tamiflu and it takes a while to manufacture a targeted vaccine, so it looks like it’s already developed immunity to general flu vaccines. Flu pandemics have a habit of targeting the healthiest people too.  During the Spanish Flu pandemic, healthy people in their 20s died when their immune systems went into overdrive, speeding up the virus’s course. Pneumonia was also a very common cause of death with people infected with the virus. In Mexico today, the group that is showing the highest rate of infection is people aged 25-45.

I wouldn’t suggest taping up your home or wearing a medical mask when shopping at the mall, but keep a close eye on the spread of the virus. Don’t travel to any of the affected areas in Mexico or the US.  If you come down with flu symptoms, do NOT go to work.

Here’s my college report on Avian Flu for some light reading: Avian Flu Report

And an excerpt from my report:

The H5N1 subtype of avian influenza is
particularly dangerous due to its ability to
change more rapidly than other strains. This
characteristic is due to its capability of easily
infecting other animals besides birds. When the
virus infects other animals, they could be
carrying other viruses that would not be present
in birds. One of the animals that can pass
influenza easily to humans is pigs. After the
initial outbreak of the Spanish Flu in 1918, the
virus infected the pig population and now the
versions of the flu that infect pigs can be easily
transmitted to humans. Since modern pig flu
viruses can easily infect humans, a pig infected
with two strains could create a strain capable of
conducting human-to-human infection

Tom News, Science avian flu, swine flu

“Leading scientist Stephen Hawking is “very ill” in hospital, his employer Cambridge University has said.”

If Hawking’s ALS has finally caught up with him, then this could be a sad moment for science. His contributions to physics and astronomy, as well as his perseverence in battling the odds have made him a cultural icon. Even my parents would know who he is. The part of his life that impresses me the most is his sense of humor even when he’s almost entirely paralyzed. He took time out to guest star on TV shows and write a book that introduced relativistic principles to normal people (I highly suggest reading A Brief History of Time. It was one of the reasons I got into physics in highschool)

Tom News, Science hawking

Omidreza Mirsayafi

I asked: When will we understand the meaning of freedom?
I answered: When our wisdom can be delivered from ignorance, selfishness and foolishness.

-Mirsayafi

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12116017

An Iranian blogger who posted “insults against Iranian leaders” died in prison, after being administered tranquilizers and never being taken to a hospital.  It’s stories like these that make me sad for those countries that don’t have the freedoms that we all take for granted here in America.  At the same time, it’s uplifting to see the rest of the Iranian blogs rally around his death.  It’s one of those moments where you wonder at what point will the people of this country show their leaders that this oppression can’t go on any longer.  Hopefully soon.

Tom News blogger, iran

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/protests_at_the_g20_summit.html

Stunning photo coverage of the protests, as can always be expected from boston.com. I’m amazed that they always seem to send photographers into these dangerous situations and come out with the absolute best photos.  Check out the pictures from their coverage of the Greece protests from last year for more examples.

It’s interesting that in the US, news coverage tended to focus on group photoshoots of the world leaders and gifts exchanged.  You can bet if this was in the United States, the news agencies would have reported the protests closely.

Tom News boston.com, g20, protest