A zoonosis is a disease that is ‘generic’ enough to affect more than one class or order of animals. For instance, rabies is zoonotic: it can be transmitted to any animal in the Class Mammalia and affects the brain resulting in death if not treated, but if that rabid dog bites a turkey or eagle, it won’t catch the virus. It doesn’t affect Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Amphibians, or other chordates, including all the other spongy forms and animals we don’t recognize in our daily lives. But today’s post is not about rabies. I”ll cover that another day. Today is just one question.

 

True or False? AIDS may be a zoonosis; two strains of immunodeficiency virus have been confirmed in chimpanzees that are transmissible to humans.

 

 

 

 

It’s TRUE.  At the University of Nebraska (Lincoln) it has been tested and confirmed.

 

“The team also found evidence for the long-suspected notion that SIV strains mutate upon entering cells to overcome human-specific barriers to infection. Within 14 weeks, the same viral gene in two different SIV strains — including the ancestor of HIV-1 M — regularly underwent mutations at two key positions on that gene.”         https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160722092947.htm

University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Forms of HIV can cross from chimps to humans, study confirms.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 July 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160722092947.htm>.

This is a CGI image!  For all intents and purposes, this appears to be a three dimensional object in a photograph. New technologies are created every day, and not just in medicine, engineering, or computing.

It was developed at U C San Diego’s Jacob’s School of Engineering. If you don’t know, computer graphic images employ algorithms to model light reflecting off a surface. The new technology runs nearly 100 times faster than current programs. Algorithms in the early days smoothed out fine details in order to run fast enough, but today those images look stilted and almost retro compared to what we expect of today’s images.

Using microfacets, like millions of microscopic mirrors, details could be smoothed out but took enormous amounts of computer power to run the algorithm. By creating a predictable location for the light to reflect, only lights that fall in that location are picked up to be processed, thereby speeding up but using an less power than would have been needed without the ‘vector’ if you will. For a bumpy surface, such as a road or a stream, the system picks up groups of pixels rather than calculating them one by one.

For those who like even more details of this kind of nerdyness, I found the article, and there are more pictures, too, at www.gizmag.com (where I stole the above image of a snail, which came from UCSD). If you really want to know more, you should high tail it over to Anaheim and get to SIGGRAPH which is going on right now (and here’s another link)

It’s a Dog-day Monday, and by that I mean it’s hot. Really, really hot. We should hit 108 F today. That’s 42 in centigrade, or am I supposed to say Celsius? I’m never sure.

What gets you moving on Monday? Is it your favorite java from the drive thru on your way to the office? Maybe it’s your day off and sleeping late is your idea of a perfect Monday morning. Here every day is pretty much alike except for the television programming, which is how I know it’s Monday.

Inspiration can be hard in coming until something pushes at your from one way or another. A news story, a phone call, an email. It could be I was awakened by my cat at 4:00 am, or just as likely one of my three roosters, however, they have a different MO. If I’m late getting up, my parrot will start screaming to remind me that the morning is slipping away. Before I know it, the mail has arrived, it’s hotter than hell, and I still haven’t finished my first cup of coffee!

Then, there are things to look forward to that will drop tidbits in my lap to nurture and protect until I can return to the document. A vacation to someplace outside of the desert and bright lights always does it. So does a convention, in this case, the biggest baddest convention a science fiction writer could ever hope to attend: Star Trek Las Vegas, the 50th Anniversary. It begins in 10 days. Now I can start the countdown, crossing days off the calendar with the large black marker. Vacation?  I leave town a few times every year. Birth of a child? Getting married? I can have more than one of each of those. This is the once in a lifetime, big bang, pull out all the stops mother of all  sci fi conventions. And I’m going!

So I may be preoccupied next week.

 

 

I thought I’d just shoot out a note today about the new novel. Paradox: The Alien Genome is selling slowly, and Gamma Ray Games is slow but steady. The next chapter is tentatively called “Symbiosis: Titans of Cassiopeia”. Titles are subject to change but so far it’s sticking. If you have friends who might like this blog or my books, do them a favor, shoot them a note about me!

Titans are large, and not necessarily in physical space, although that can certainly be one definition. Cassiopeia is a constellation that appears like a W in the sky, certainly large from side to side. In this story, Captain Thomas Jackson leads a partially new team to the Eta Cassiopeia system, 20 light years from Earth at the request of the inhabitants of one of its planets. They are dying, facing a plague that no one has been able to quash for more than a century. Every bit of their technology has focused on treating and curing the epidemic, to no avail. More than a third of the planet’s population has perished.

The Science Ship Maria Mitchell is on the way with powerful antibiotics, but uncovers a shocking plot to be overcome. The ships are faster, the villains are crafty, and Jackson still has what it takes to inspire his crew to give their all when it comes to helping the indigenous people of Eta Cass P5.

Image Credit http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0939a