Go to any decent public aquarium they have electric eel demos all the time. I saw one in the Buffalo aquarium in 1975.

There are also electric catfish, they get to be a foot long. The eels get to be three feet.

Also the "baby whale" and "elephant nose" fish (of which there are many many species) also have this capability, albeit very mild, they use it to find food and navigate much in the way sonar works. They're also among the most evolved and intelligent of all fishes (and make lousy aquarium pets for this reason - you can keep them but you REALLY have to know what you're doing)

While not nearly as dramatic, my understanding is that flu kills many more people than Ebola does.

Yes and no.

Ebola typically kills between 50% to 99% of infected patients. Each Ebola patient on average infects two other (R0 = 2 - this is the r-naught factor)

The W.H.O. has computed a 70.8% lethality rate for the current strain: GEBOV.

Influenza otoh has a far lower lethality rate, but more people get it. If as many people got Ebola as got influenza, then, um, well, errr, let's put it this way you wouldn't have to worry about slow loading websites.

But yes, 50,000 people a year die of flu in the US, not one American in America died of a disease that's 70% lethal and there are reasons for this.

Programmers more than anyone should be able to understand these pathogens more than most people.

Bacteria are a problem because some strains/species have metabolic byproducts (ie botulotoxin) that are deadly.

But viruses are different, they don't do this.

What they do instead is replicate like RTM's worm and make trillions of copies of themselves.

Ask yourself - where do the raw materials come from when each virus makes a trillion more?

You, of course.

Now, what if the raw materials they use are really important to you in trace amounts?

So, whatever the virus encodes for, you're losing that stuff.

Ever wonder why Ebola Reston is harmless? Or why some people who got HIV never got AIDS? Or why some who got HIV got AIDS quickly while others took a decade? Or why some people get flu and die while others get sick for a week and are fine after?

It all depends on what the virus encodes for and what molecules it strips from your body.

"Klenner's paper (Klenner FR. The treatment of poliomyelitis and other virus diseases with intravenous ascorbate C. J. South. Med. and Surg., 111:210-214, 1949.) on curing 60 cases of polio in the epidemic of 1948 should have changed the way infectious diseases were treated but it did not." - Robert Cathcart

1949 ^^^

In 2010 the H1N1 influenza swept through here; my ex died of it, I was sick for two days and then back to work.

If you can find the numbers (good luck with that) compute the r-naught factor for Ebola and see if you can explain what happened in mid-October.

[citation required]

"Facts aren't defamation."

They are in the UK where truth is not an absolute defense of libel.

More details and additoinal references are provided here: http://rs79.vrx.net/works/essa...

"Ask any person that suffers shingles, virus populations in West Africa may evolve a less lethal variety of Ebola... but I am not going to bet on it."

Actually the lethal strains of EBOV are a mutation of the Asian strain we know as "Reston" which is harmless. It does not encode for selenium.

When the virus made it to the selenium rich soils of West Africa it mutated picking up the encoding for a homologue of the human selenoenzyme glutathione peroxidase (GPx3) which makes it lethal. See: http://orthomolecular.org/libr...

"The only hope for people with regard to HIV & Ebola consists of social changes an if we are lucky immunizations"

There can be no working vaccine; you can induce production of antibodies, but absent sufficient serum selenium the immune system cannot out-compete the virus foe the precursors for GPx3 and the it all goes downhill from there. One researcher has stated "Ebola strips selenium from the body so quickly it does in a day what HIV takes 10 years to do".

The hope for patients with HIV and EBOV lies in the coastal forests of West Gabon. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09...
http://en.ird.fr/the-media-cen...
http://www.plosone.org/article...

"Some virologists suggest the virus may eventually become "almost harmless" as it continues to evolve"

It would be harmless if the virus did not encode for a homologue of the human lipid peroxidase inhibitor glutathione peroxidase. See Keshen's disease (China).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

What they say might be happening but what *also* would explain that (and they did not check, a simple serum selenium test would differentiate) is:

Bloomberg news 2013:
"... selenium for two years were able to delay their need for antiretroviral therapies by about half compared with those given a placebo, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study followed 878 HIV-infected adults from Botswana, a nation with one of the highest rates of infection of the AIDS virus."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

(they need to read Fosters papers, B, C and E boost the immune system but it's Tryptophan, Glutamine and Cysteine that the virus encodes for and strips from the body)

Summary:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Aidsan...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

Watch these -
Theory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Case study:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Then read his (free) book:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/0...
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/cont...

See also:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/...
http://aras.ab.ca/articles/rfw...
http://www.fosterhealth.ca/nut...

Also:
1. Foster HD. How HIV-1 causes AIDS: Implications for prevention and treatment," Medical Hypotheses, Vol. 62(4), p 549-553, 2004.

2. Foster HD. What really causes AIDS. Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2002. Free download at www.hdfoster.com .

For further reading:

"HIV/AIDS: a nutrient deficiency disease," Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 2005, Vol. 20(2), p 67-69.
Environmental factors and the pathogenesis of selenium-CD-4 cell tailspin in AIDS. Chinese Journal of AIDS and STD, Vol. 10(5), p 390-392,402 2004.

AIDS and the selenium-CD4T cell tailspin," World Journal of Infection, Vol. 3(6), p 456-459, 2003.
Micronutrients in pathogenesis and treatment of AIDS," Foreign Medical Sciences: Section of Medgeography, Vol. 24(2), p 49-53, 2003.

Why HIV-1 has diffused so much more rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa than in North America. Medical Hypotheses, Vol. 60(4), p 611-614, 2003.

"How HIV-1 kills: Implications for the treatment and prevention of AIDS. Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, No. 255, p 76-78, 2002.

"Aids and the 'selenium - CD4T cell tailspin': the geography of a pandemic," Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, No. 209, p 94-99, 2000.

...not make the same mistakes we made with Wikipedia?

1) People editing X should have some knowledge of X

2) If a person Y complains and corrects an article about Y it should be automatically dismissed. This has happened to me, twice and others who are actually well known.

I signed up, it's a great idea.

"the company's told the inquiry into digital currencies. MasterCard believes that "all participants in the payments system that provide similar services to consumers should be regulated in the same way to achieve a level playing field for all."

That would imply bitcoin have have to adopt predatory practices.

I realize extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But rather than make it easy let me show you how to find things like this

Maybe you can figure this out too. Let's play a game.

Google "ebola gabon immunity" (without the quotes)

You'll find some newspaper articles, the French one points to a PLOS paper. In that paper find what man and bat have in common. It's near the end and obvious.

Now go to google scholar and google "ebola zaire selenium" and find THAT 1995 paper.

Now look at where Africa fits into South America. Look up the obvious food product in the NIH papers. Remember what man and bat have in common.

Any idea why of the Americans in America who caught EBOV, a disease that's 70.8% fatal not one died?

Have you seen the numbers in Africa? What are they. Calculate the r-naught and look right around mid october. Notice anything different?

The NIH was told how to fix this on Oct 17.

TFN is from Oct 9. Y'all can stand down. And my, weren't those racial epithets just charming.

I'm sorry, you're full of shit and don't have a clue what you're talking about. When you disagree with NASA and CERN and the fossil record you better be able to also drop an SUV on mars from a rocket powered skycrane and hold all the worlds antimatter.

The IPCC has not been right about anything, ever, and if you don't think 75% error is meaningful then 2+2=7 is for you.

You wouldn't happen to be the recipient of a climate grant would you?

"The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.
"'I made a mistake'

As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding."

Oh fuck. The F word. F-f-f-f-f-uding.

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

"Warming" -> http://www.nature.com/nclimate...
http://www.nature.com/nclimate...
http://www.climate.gov/news-fe...
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mu...
http://opinion.financialpost.c...
http://www.populartechnology.n...
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/...
http://www.climatechangedispat...
http://news.ku.dk/all_news/201...

If you have some other explanations of all these or proof of a warming world this might be a good time to drag it out.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/...

However, the last 50 years has seen the size of this swing has increase by as 50%, for reasons that aren't fully understood. "

The fact we've cut 40% of the worlds trees down in the past 100 years are nothing to do with this. What does NASA know anyway?

Who writes this stuff?

Plants producing net CO2 gain has to be the the most asinine thing I've ever read about Co2.

Contraindication: http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

Russia didn't invade at all. It was a part of Russia and Russia *gave* it to Ukraine. There's a bilateral treaty between the two nations whereby Russia can have up to 25,000 troops there and Russia has had 16,000 troops there. They were there last month, they were there last year. Plus nearly everyone there is Russian. Who just gave a 96% mandate to rejoin Russia and GTFO of Ukraine which is in the middle of a Kosovo/Sarajevo style civil war with (hundreds of) Ukranians being killed by other Ukrainians - leftists, being killed by neo-Nazis and outright fascists. The Crimeans want out and who could blame them? Nobody has died in Crimea and they want to keep it that way, and then there's the Chevron fracking deal with the Ukraine that Crimea won't have to suffer through. How could this possibly be called an invasion? Read the background on Crimea, Russia and the Ukraine here and here.

Here is a *partial* list of US invasions:

The list does not include the 1801-1805 US Marine Barbary War operations against Barbary pirates based in Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia and Libya , and also ignores massive US subversion of virtually all countries in the world.

(1) American Indian nations (1776 onwards, American Indian Genocide; 1803, Louisiana Purchase; 1844, Indians banned from east of the Mississippi; 1861 onwards, California genocide; 1890, Lakota Indians massacre), (2) Mexico (1836-1846; 1913; 1914-1918; 1923), (3) Nicaragua (1856-1857; 1894; 1896; 1898; 1899; 1907; 1910; 1912-1933; 1981-1990), (4) American forces deployed against Americans (1861-1865, Civil War; 1892; 1894; 1898; 1899-1901; 1901; 1914; 1915; 1920-1921; 1932; 1943; 1967; 1968; 1970; 1973; 1992; 2001), (5), Argentina (1890), (6), Chile (1891; 1973), (7) Haiti (1891; 1914-1934; 1994; 2004-2005), (8) Hawaii (1893-), (9) China (1895-1895; 1898-1900; 1911-1941; 1922-1927; 1927-1934; 1948-1949; 1951-1953; 1958), (10) Korea (1894-1896; 1904-1905; 1951-1953), (11) Panama (1895; 1901-1914; 1908; 1912; 1918-1920; 1925; 1958; 1964; 1989-), (12) Philippines (1898-1910; 1948-1954; 1989; 2002-), (13) Cuba (1898-1902; 1906-1909; 1912; 1917-1933; 1961; 1962), (14) Puerto Rico (1898-; 1950; ); (15) Guam (1898-), (16) Samoa (1899-), (17) Honduras (1903; 1907; 1911; 1912; 1919; 1924-1925; 1983-1989), (18) Dominican Republic (1903-1904; 1914; 1916-1924; 1965-1966), (19) Germany (1917-1918; 1941-1945; 1948; 1961), (20) Russia (1918-1922), (21) Yugoslavia (1919; 1946; 1992-1994; 1999), (22) Guatemala (1920; 1954; 1966-1967), (23) Turkey (1922), (24) El Salvador (1932; 1981-1992), (25) Italy (1941-1945); (26) Morocco (1941-1945), (27) France (1941-1945), (28) Algeria (1941-1945), (29) Tunisia (1941-1945), (30) Libya (1941-1945; 1981; 1986; 1989; 2011), (31) Egypt (1941-1945; 1956; 1967; 1973; 2013), (32) India (1941-1945), (33) Burma (1941-1945), (34) Micronesia (1941-1945), (35) Papua New Guinea (1941-1945), (36) Vanuatu (1941-1945), (37) Austria (1941-1945), (38) Hungary (1941-1945), (39) Japan (1941-1945), (40) Iran (1946; 1953; 1980; 1984; 1987-1988; ), (41) Uruguay (1947), (42) Greece (1947-1949), (43) Vietnam (1954; 1960-1975), (44) Lebanon (1958; 1982-1984), (45) Iraq (1958; 1963; 1990-1991; 1990-2003; 1998; 2003-2011), (46) Laos (1962-), (47) Indonesia (1965), (48) Cambodia (1969-1975; 1975), (49) Oman (1970), (50) Laos (1971-1973), (51) Angola (1976-1992), (52) Grenada (1983-1984), (53) Bolivia (1986; ), (54) Virgin Islands (1989), (55) Liberia (1990; 1997; 2003), (56) Saudi Arabia (1990-1991), (57) Kuwait (1991), (58) Somalia (1992-1994; 2006), (59) Bosnia (1993-), (60) Zaire (Congo) (1996-1997), (61) Albania (1997), (62) Sudan (1998), (63) Afghanistan (1998; 2001-), (64) Yemen (2000; 2002-), (65) Macedonia (2001), (66) Colombia (2002-), (67) Pakistan (2005-), (68) Syria (2008; 2011-), (69) Uganda (2011), (70) Mali (2013), (71) Niger (2013).

Things that led up to this:
The IMF
http://www.euronews.com/2014/0...
"austerity" to pay back the banksters
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-aus...
US interference
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Neo-Nazi insurgents
http://journal-neo.org/2014/03...
Kiev state sponsored violence
http://rt.com/news/ashton-maid...
Chevron's fracking deal with Ukraine
http://www.reuters.com/article...
Russia doesn't recognize the interim Kiev government yet continues subsidies and aid. The US and EU recognize the Kiev government yet haven't given even a penny.
http://rt.com/business/putin-u...
Why do some Eastern Ukrainis want to rejoin Russia? It's less about ethnic ties and more about the fact that the area is basically Ukraine's Detroit and people have forgotten just enough about the "good old days" to be nostalgic for them.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/paral...
Apr. 21 2014 - Stalin victims include Crimean Tatars rehabilitated by Putin decree
http://rt.com/news/crimea-tata...
Apr 24 2014 - American duplicity with regards to Ukraine
http://original.antiwar.com/Ch...
May 1 2014 - It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
May 14,2014 - Son of US VP Joe Biden appointed to board of major Ukrainian gas company
http://rt.com/business/158660-...
Oct, 2014 - unearthing graves of Kiev's victems.
http://nsnbc.me/2014/10/04/spi...

Barbie is a manager. Coding is for suckers.

Perspective.