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__________*__________ Latest News
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Ancient Athenian Plague Was In Fact Typhoid
More than 2,000 years ago,a mysterious plague gripped the Great Greek city ofAthens.It is estimated that more than a third of the population died and the devastation that followed helped Spartato gain the upper hand in their 30 year long war between the city states. This was recorded by Thucydides an ancient historian, who was a general in the war and plague victim who recovered,under the title History of the Peloponnesian War. although he did not leave precise facts and description to be able to decide clearly whether the disease was bubonic plague,Smallpox or a combanition of other ailments. These days with the progress in DNA,some samples were collected, Some of the Teeth and Bones DNA from an ancient burial pit,after analysis the DNA pointed to Typhoid fever.
In 1994 an escavation discovered a mass grave containing at least 150 bodies,including children,deep beneath the Kerameikos cemetery in Athens. Contrary to the Greek Burial Traditions,the arrangement of the buried bodies grew progressively more haphazard as they were mounted on top of one another and few if not little burial offerigs,these included a small number of vases that were left with the hastily buried bodies. Scientists dated the vases back to 430 B.C., which coincides with the Historian Thucydides' report of when the plague broke out in the city of Athens. |
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Microsoft Plans iPod media rival
In competition to iPod ,Microsoft is preparing to unveil a handheld multimedia device designed to take on the great Apple's iPod and the Sony PSP,according to reports.
The new device called Origami,contains a touch screen,wireless web access,and will play music videos and games.
A very Slick advertisment for the new device and a website setup is availble online.
Microsoft confirmed it had been working on Origami,but insisted no date had been set for an official launch yet.
Speculation about the Origami grew as Apple launched the latest innovation in its iPod range.
Apple company have launched iPod Hi-Fi,a speaker system designed an Intel processor with the ability to stream media from other computers onto a local network.
Great Product
According to the Origami advertisment campaign,posted on the website http://www.youtube.com at video-sharing link,microsoft sees the Origami device as an all-purpose multimedia lifestyle tool.
They show the device being used by young,attractive users where the device is streaming music wirelessly at home,to know more about the directions when you far from home,or to send pictures snapped on your mobile phone or digital camera.
Microsoft said the advertisement campaign was created a year ago and may not reflect the eventual size and shape of the Orgami device.
There was no indication whether the new device would carry the Microsoft brand name or if microsoft would simply provide the operating System to it.
It is not known yet who the other partner with microsoft,but some guess that there is agreement with chip firm Transmeta which makes low-power processors for handheld mobiles. |
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Viruses are the most Danger for British Businesses
Computer viruses are the most single biggest cause of security threat to British Businesses, a survey conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry revealed.
The study found almost 50% of the biggest security breaches suffered by companies in the last two years were due to an infection by malicious programs and Codes.
In some cases Viruses crippled key sysetms such as e-mail for more than a day while companies tried to clean up.
Threat Profile
The good news revealed by the survey is that the number of companies caught out by viruses had dropped by almost one-third since the last time the study been conducted in 2004.
What reduced the infection rate was put down to the fact that most companies had now started using Anti-Virus software to clean and protect their e-mail systems against attacks from Viruses and Hackers.
According to Chris Potter,a partner at Price Waterhouse Cooper and one of the report's authors,said that firms had got much better at keeping their Anti-Virus up to Date, Definitions and patching up Vulnerable Systems.
He said also that it is a hard won experience,they know how much this can hurt and cost if they get caught out.
However the Survey did find that most companies who got caught out tend to get infected far more often. Some unlucky companies said that they were being infected nearly once every day.
The Survey also highlighted the growing problem posed by Spyware. These malicious programs get into PCs via several different ways and try to steal your Confidential information or use another hijacked machine as a launch pad to their attacks.
Nearly 25% of the companies said that they do not have defences in place against Spyware. Mr Potter said companies needed to put defences in place to tackle newer threats, he said also it is hard to spot a spyware as it can be mixed with software as file-sharing programs. |
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Horse antibodies could combat a bird flu outbreak
Scientist Acknowledge that an old fashion method of fighting the N5H1 bird flu virus,may offer the cheap and fast way to protect against the flu.
A chinese scientist has managed to produced antibodies in a horse that are an effective treatment for bird flu.
Jiahai Lu at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and colleagues repeatedly innoculated horses with a chicken vaccine against H5N1 bird flu to make them produce the antibodies against the Virus.
The Scientist then collected the horses 'blood',seperated out the antibodies and split them to make them less likely to cause an allergic reaction when injected into humans. When they injected mice with a tenth of a milligram of antibodies, 24 hours after they had been given an otherwise lethal dose of H5N1,all the mice lived.
Costly keep
In theory, such a technique to produce antibodies could be made quickly against a panademic strain of H5N1, potentially saving many lives and limiting the spread of the virus. The problem is that most drugs produced today by companies stopped making antibodies this way.
This is because keeping horses is expensive and until now the markets for antiserum have been in poor countries and offer low financial return. In addition, the animal rights campaigners object to the technique.
Companies have instead invested in making modern, monoclonal antobodies using cell cultures. "It would be complex and expensive for a company to massively scale up its monoclonal production to treat the whole population rather than a few people, "Says the founder of the vaccine industry's panademic task force,Dr David Fedson.
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