Hundreds of Thousands Flee Congo Violence, in Region Afflicted by Ebola(NY Times)Hundreds of thousands of people have fled an explosion of ethnic violence in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past two weeks, the United Nations said on Tuesday, creating a new humanitarian emergency in a region where international agencies are struggling to control an outbreak of Ebola.Go to article
Why Another Flu Pandemic Is Likely Just a Matter of When(PBS News Hour)Despite the availability of vaccines, the flu still kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. each year, and hundreds of thousands more worldwide. But public health officials fear that an even graver threat lies ahead: the emergence of a new, much more deadly flu virus. As William Brangham reports, the scenario has occurred before.
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Ebola: 'WHO between a rock and a hard place'(DW)Declaring a global health emergency could galvanize aid to fight the Ebola epidemic in the DR Congo. It could also make the job of containing the virus much more difficult. The WHO's decision proved controversial.
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Wellcome Global Monitor 2018(Wellcome)The Wellcome Global Monitor is the world’s largest study into how people around the world think and feel about science and major health challenges.Go to article
New Technique Could Help Scientists Create a Gene in Just 1 Day(Science)Creating a new gene in a single day could soon be possible, thanks to a new technique that mimics the way the body copies its own DNA. Though the technology needs to clear a few more hurdles, it could one day let researchers speedily rewrite microbe genes, enabling them to synthesize new medicines and fuels on the fly.
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CRISPR Babies: When Will the World Be Ready?(Nature)Jeff Carroll had been married for six months when he and his wife decided not to have children. Carroll, 25 years old and a former corporal in the US Army, had just found out that he had the mutation that causes Huntington’s disease, a genetic disorder that ravages the brain and nervous system and invariably ends in an early death.
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