Tag Archives: disease

You know how every “deadly virus breakout” movie focuses on airports and usually depicts scientists tracking the air travel of the bug’s first carriers? Now there’s a study that ranks U.S. airports in terms of their “disease contagion spreading influence.” Interestingly, the results don’t track exactly with how busy the airports are. Honolulu, the nation’s 25th busiest airport, ranks third …

The New York Times has published an interesting look at how humankind’s treatment of the environment has unleashed dozens of new diseases in the last century. Diseases have always come out of the woods and wildlife and found their way into human populations — the plague and malaria are two examples. But emerging diseases have quadrupled in the last half-century, …

In 2008 non-communicable ailments such as cancer and heart disease accounted for 63% of the world’s 56 million deaths. That rising figure is attributed to increasing longevity and prosperity in non-First World nations. (Via – Andrew Sullivan)

The New York Times reports that while the city remains at DefCon 1 over the bedbug panic, at least we can rest assured that the blood suckers don’t carry any diseases. Bats are sources of rabies, Ebola, SARS and Nipah virus. And other biting bugs are disease carriers — mosquitoes for malaria and West Nile, ticks for Lyme and babesiosis, …