If it collected a more representative slice of what the world is thinking, Twitter could enable academics and scientists to track epidemics, for instance.
This underground system, along with its visible embankments, would, both directly and by example, save countless lives in the developed world during the next century — making cholera epidemics, for instance, a thing of the distant past.
Nothing — not even the Plague — has posed a more persistent threat to humanity than viral diseases: yellow fever, measles, and smallpox have been causing epidemics for thousands of years.
Michael Agar, an anthropologist from the University of Maryland, explained that he had been studying drug epidemics for years and years and then one day realised that he still didn't know the answer to that.
Meningococcal meningitis epidemics, for example, regularly plague sub-Saharan Africa, but the pharmaceutical companies that make effective meningitis vaccines do not come close to producing the 20 million to 50 million doses needed to immunize people at risk in the African "meningitis belt".
In addition, earthquakes are not like some disasters (such as typhoons or epidemics) for which one can receive early warning.
After investigating viral epidemics for the U.S. Army during World War II, Robbins joined a research team at the Children's Hospital in Boston.
This study aimed to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of measles in Shandong Province, China, including its spatial distribution pattern, in order to have a precise prediction of measles epidemics for better public health strategic planning and resource allocation.
Factors such as scarcity of its usual prey, the regular availability of human corpses--from epidemics, for example--or injuries that make hunting fast prey difficult can initially lead a lion to resort to man-eating, say the authors.
Now the global community needs to seize the opportunity and commit the resources necessary to end these epidemics for good.
