Is Ebola Airborne?

Scientists have demonstrated in lab testing that the virus can pass from one animal to another through the air but only over short distances. So if you are in the same room as someone with Ebola you are in danger. If you are on the same plane or bus you are in danger. However if the guy living a few houses down your street has Ebola you are safe.

The current Ebola outbreak has spread quickly, with almost 9,000 confirmed and suspected cases across West Africa and almost 4,500 deaths. Experts say there could be as many as 10,000 new cases per week in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone by the end of this year according to the World Health Organization. This outbreak has the potential to kill millions in Africa in the next year if things continue to go the way they are.

NASA Predicts The Beginning Of The End

Time To Start Prepping

A study funded by NASA has attempted to understand why past societies have fallen apart has given us a bleak picture of the not so distant future. The study uses a mathematical model that incorporates both environmental pressures, social and political dynamics to explore how societies such as ours may be disrupted in the future.

In simple terms the study found that things fall apart when we use up our resources faster than we can replace them and when a small number of well off people control too much of the wealth and power. In other words if the rich eat all the food the poor will starve and the rich cant survive without the poor. Now this is not new information. Many of us have known this for years. But with NASA in the title it gets more attention in the press.

Will this happen? Who knows. What the study cant predict is what effect technology will have on the future of our civilization. All the past civilizations that were used in the study were primitive by our standards. The folks who did this study could not look at an advanced civilization like ours that collapsed as this is the first one that has ever existed. We are in uncharted waters here. We are in a race with ourselves. Can our brains and incredible ingenuity save us from our own stupidity?

Right now a lot of really smart people are working on new energy sources. Things like fusion power and advanced solar power. Other people are learning how to grow more food with less resources. And of course we have the power to regulate our population already we just don't have the will to do it yet.

Will civilization survive? Who knows. I however will keep prepping for the worst. But I hope for the best. It would be a shame if we let it all fall apart.

Reports from China say 73-year-old woman died from a bird flu strain that has spread to people for 1st time

More Bird Flu In China

China's national disease centre confirmed the woman had been infected by the H10N8 bird flu strain. This is the first reported case of H10N8 in a human.

The World Health Organization Has called this Death “worrisome.”

 The department says the woman had severe pneumonia before dying Dec. 6. She also had direct contact with poultry.
 China's national disease centre says experts believe this is an isolated case and there's low risk of this strain infecting more people or spreading.

1/2 of the World is DEAD. What will you do?

I already mentioned the H5N1 bird flu strain which was genetically altered to become a much more contagious virus. Some say it has the potential to kill up to half the world’s population. Now forget for a moment all the arguing the academic and bioterrorism experts are doing over whether to publish the recipe, and whether the research should have been done in the first place. Thats out of your hands. Think about what you are going to do if it ever gets free of the lab. DO YOU HAVE A PLAN?

Black Death Is 'Grandmother' of All Modern Plagues

I was just reading about the new genetic research that indicates the bacterium blamed for the Black Death, a bug that wiped out more than a third of Europe's population within about five years. Looks an awful lot like the modern versions of the plague-causing bug. And I was struck by the thought that perhaps we need to be very careful about messing around with this kind of stuff in a laboratory.

While I am not saying that these scientists are doing any thing that is dangerous. They are only looking at DNA. It makes the Mad Scientist in me think about all kinds of nasty things that could come out of such knowledge. Then again. That's always the price we pay for knowledge.

It also makes one think about how horrendous it must have been for the people of Europe at that time. Its hard to contemplate the effect of a third of the population dying. If it were to happen today it would devastate the economy. In fact it could conceivably destroy our entire civilization.

Scary thought.