"We hear a lot about bioterrorism and pandemics," says Sheldon H. Jacobson, a professor of computer science and pediatrics at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,"but the fact of the matter is, the threat to routine immunization is one of the greatest threats we face. If we had problems with our vaccine supply chain, it would have the potential to cause more deaths than any of those other issues."
A million dollars is difficult to imagine but if someone is charging $2 instead of one, that gets attention. Likewise, a quote attributed to communist USSR despot Joesph Stalin is "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."(1) And he should know, being responsible for 20 million deaths (starting with competitor Leon Trotsky) and so nestled comfortably between Mao and Hitler in world history, but is regarded favorably by some on left whereas a serial killer of a few is reviled by everyone.
A group says they have validated that large-scale tragedies don't connect people emotionally the same way smaller tragedies do, called a "scope-severity paradox".
Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious disease of the lungs and other organs caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (or M. tuberculosis) and which infects roughly a third of the world's population. 5-10% of those in the infected population become sick or infectious at some point during their lifetime.
NGC 300 is one of the closest and most prominent spiral galaxies in the southern skies, about six million light-years away and bright enough it can be seen with binoculars. NGC 300 lies in the constellation of Sculptor with only a few bright stars, but is home to a collection of nearby galaxies that form the Sculptor Group, though recent distance measurements show that NGC 300 lies significantly closer to us than many of the other galaxies in the group and may be only loosely associated with them.
Compared to other galaxies, NGC 300 is remarkably normal, making it an ideal specimen for astronomers studying the structure and content of spiral galaxies such as our own.
Current battery design and implementation is not optimal, but it's cheap. A new effort seeks to make conventional battery systems more standardized and increase interoperability of battery and charger parts, which creates energy waste, extra costs and operational inefficiencies. But it's not for the casual user.
It's called the Intelligent Battery system and it also isn't cheap - the charger is about 20 percent more expensive than alternatives but the developers say the extra initial investment is recuperated in the medium and long term through prolonged battery life and better performance and the system provides real time information on the health and charge level of their batteries.
An important enzyme that acts in the nervous system may lead to new treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Our cells contain a network of tubes known as microtubules that are made of protein and serve as tracks for the shuttling of materials from one part of the cell to another. Microtubules in parts of neurons in the brain that send signals, for example, are loaded with chemical additions called acetylation marks. Microtubules in parts of neurons that receive signals, on the other hand, have few.
Here's Where Your Backyard Was 300 Million Years Ago
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The Pain Scale Is Broken But This May Fix It
