AT least one new disease is jumping the species barrier from animals to human beings every year, exposing people to emerging germs at a rate that may be unprecedented.
The first work to catalogue the range of germs capable of infecting people has disclosed that 38 new human pathogens have emerged in the past 25 years. Three quarters of these, including Aids, avian flu, Sars and new variant CJD, originated as animal diseases.
While it is not known whether the rate at which diseases are jumping species is accelerating, Dr Woolhouse said it was impossible that human beings had been exposed to so many new pathogens so quickly through most of history.
Changes in human behaviour and the environment, such as bushmeat hunting, intensive agriculture, the ease of long-distance travel and global warming, were all likely to be helping animal germs to acquire the ability to infect people.
“The rate of accumulation we are seeing now is too fast to be supported over an evolutionary timescale,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in St Louis yesterday. “We would be overrun with pathogens.
“Either many of these pathogens will not persist in humans, or there is something very unusual about the present time. The most obvious explanation is the pace and scale of change in the ways humans interact with their environment, providing new opportunities for humans to be exposed to and to transmit novel pathogens.”


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89 300E
79 240D
72 Westy
63 Bug sunroof
85 Jeep CJ7
86 Chevy 6.2l diesel PU

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius

Judgement day is coming!

were all farked in the long run anyways...

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95 Honda Shadow ACE 1100.
1999 Plymouth Neon Expresso. 2.4 swap, 10.5 to 1 comp, big cams. Autocross time attack vehicle!
2012 Escape, 'hunter" (5 sp 4cyl)