HISTORY AND MYSTERY

By Pam Eastlick

As I looked over the files this week, I discovered that the file that’s near and dear to my heart was bulging. So we’re off for a rocket ride through space this week. But some of our stories also involve time travel (after a fashion). So enjoy some space news with me.

There’s a small cottage industry that attempts to solve ancient mysteries by examining what was going on in the sky at the time. Astronomers have used things like visible constellations, conjunctions, phases of the moon and eclipses to date things like Julius Caesar’s first arrival in Britain, the possible time of the birth of Jesus and the exact dates of first contacts with native peoples. New research now sheds light on Homer’s arrival back in Greece after the Odyssey.

WELCOME HOME

There are many debates that surround Homer’s Odyssey but one that just may be subject to scientific analysis is that there was a total solar eclipse at the time of his return to Greece.

Total eclipses are very rare. They are so rare that if what Homer describes is truly an eclipse, it could help historians date the fall of Troy, which may have occurred around the time of the events described in the Iliad and the Odyssey. But after arguing about the point for hundreds of years, historians, astronomers and classicists finally agreed that there was no corroborating evidence and tabled the discussion. Now Argentinean researchers believe they have found some overlooked passages that, taken together, may shed new light on the timing of an epic journey.

The astronomers combed through the Odyssey to find specific astronomical references that could be precisely identified as occurring on specific days throughout Odysseus’s journey. Then, they aligned each of those dates with the date of Odysseus’s return, the same day he murders the suitors who had taken advantage of his long absence to court his wife.

They identified four celestial events. The day of the slaughter is, as Homer writes more than once, also a new moon (something that’s also a prerequisite for a total eclipse). Six days before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky. Twenty-nine days before, two constellations — the Pleiades and Boötes — are simultaneously visible at sunset. And 33 days before, Homer may be suggesting that Mercury is high at dawn and near the western end of its trajectory. (Homer actually writes that Hermes — known to the Romans as Mercury — traveled far west only to deliver a message and fly all the way back east again; the researchers interpret this as a reference to the planet.)

Astronomically, these four phenomena recur at different intervals of time, so together they never recur in exactly the same pattern. The astronomers looked to see if there was any date within 100 years of the fall of Troy that would fit the pattern of the astronomical timeline. There was only one: April 16, 1178 BCE, the same day that astronomers had calculated the occurrence of a total solar eclipse.

The Argentinean astronomers acknowledge that their findings rely on a large assumption: Although the association of planets with gods was a Babylonian invention that dates back to around 2000 BCE, there’s no evidence that those ideas had reached Greece by the time Homer was writing, several hundred years later. Ultimately, whether they’re right or wrong, the researchers are interested in reopening the debate.

"Poor men, what terror is this that overwhelms you so? Night shrouds your heads, your faces, down to your knees — cries of mourning are bursting into fire — cheeks rivering tears — the walls and the handsome crossbeams dripping dank with blood! Ghosts, look, thronging the entrance, thronging the court, go trooping down to the realm of death and darkness! The sun is blotted out of the sky — look there — a lethal mist spreads all across the earth!" — Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)

And now that you’ve had your classical literature fix for the month (year?) let’s fast-forward almost 3000 years and have a look through the eyes of history.

GALILEO’S EYES

Exactly four centuries ago, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei turned his ‘spyglass’ on the sky for the first time and turned the world upside down. He used his new invention to look at the moon, gaze at the Milky Way and discover the four large moons of Jupiter, which started humanity down that long road which eventually dethroned the planet Earth as the center of everything.

In synch with the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), which marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s discoveries, a group of astronomers and curators from the Arcetri Observatory and the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, both in Florence, Italy, are recreating the kind of telescope and conditions that led to Galileo’s world-changing observations.

Astronomers will be using the recreated ‘spyglass’ to catalogue all the objects recorded in Galileo’s ‘Sidereus Nuncius’, which is translated as the Starry Messenger. Sidereus Nuncius was published in 1610 and includes most of his early observations. Interestingly enough, since it was written not for other scientists but for the non-scientist, it’s remarkably easy to read. (Perhaps more so than Homer’s Odyssey!)

The astronomers have already observed the Moon and Saturn and are now recording images of Jupiter’s moons and the phases of Venus. Both of these observations provided Galileo with crucial evidence that most objects in the solar system orbit the Sun and not the Earth.

To recreate Galileo’s first telescope, the team first examined the lens of a telescope given to Galileo’s patron, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II, in 1610. They measured the shape and refractive index of the lens, and used X-ray fluorescence to determine the condition of the glass. Unfortunately, the team has not been able to build a replica of the telescope actually used by Galileo to make the observations reported in Sidereus Nuncius as only one lens of that instrument survives.

The project, however, is more ambitious than just recreating one of Galileo’s telescopes. The ultimate aim is to catch what Galileo himself might have seen. It is known that Galileo died blind and the researchers are keen to open Galileo’s tomb to retrieve DNA and diagnose his optical affliction in order to create conditions that resemble looking through Galileo’s very own eyes. Most historians think that Galileo didn’t have an eye disease however; they think that he gradually lost his eyesight because he had used his remarkable new invention to look directly at the Sun. Galileo sacrificed his corneas to tell us about sunspots.

Galileo began a whole new era of observing the sky, but life on Earth is possible because you can only observe certain things from Earth. Our atmosphere is opaque to virtually all electromagnetic radiation and trust me, this is a very good thing. About the only waves that get through our air are visible light, heat, some ultraviolet and some radio waves. We don’t have to worry about the Sun frying us with x-rays or gamma rays or microwaves because all these deadly radiations are blocked by our air. Although it keeps us alive, that lovely nitrogen/oxygen blanket does a lousy job of letting astronomers study the stars (although Galileo certainly didn’t think so!)

The only way to study these other wavelengths is to either put your detector in orbit or to boost it up beyond most of Earth’s air with a rocket or a balloon. Astronomers have recently done that and discovered something very strange.

LOUDER THAN A WHISPER

In July 2006, NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas
launched a balloon-borne instrument named ARCADE, which stands for the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission. ARCADE’s mission was to search the sky for heat from the first generation of stars and the balloon flew to an altitude of 120,000 feet, where the atmosphere thins into the vacuum of space. Instead they detected cosmic radio noise that booms six times louder than expected.

"The universe really threw us a curve," one of the researchers says. "Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted." Detailed analysis ruled out an origin from primordial stars or from known radio sources, including gas in the outermost halo of our own galaxy. The source of this cosmic radio background remains a mystery.

Many objects in the universe emit radio waves. In 1931, American physicist Karl Jansky first detected radio static from our own Milky Way galaxy. Similar emissions from other galaxies create a background hiss of radio noise.

The real problem is that there don’t appear to be enough radio galaxies to account for the signal ARCADE detected. To account for the noise the astronomers detected, you’d have to pack the radio galaxies into the universe like sardines. There wouldn’t be any space left between one galaxy and the next.

The sought-for signal from the earliest stars remains hidden behind the newly detected cosmic radio background. This noise complicates efforts to detect the very first stars, which are thought to have formed about 13 billion years ago — not long, in cosmic terms, after the Big Bang. Nevertheless, this cosmic static may provide important clues to the development of galaxies when the universe was less than half its present age. Unlocking its origins should provide new insight into the development of radio sources in the early universe.

"This is what makes science so exciting," says Michael Seiffert, a team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "You start out on a path to measure something — in this case, the heat from the very first stars — but run into something else entirely, something unexplained."

ARCADE is the first instrument to measure the radio sky with enough precision to detect this mysterious signal. To enhance the sensitivity of ARCADE’s radio receivers, they were immersed in more than 500 gallons of ultra-cold liquid helium. The instrument’s operating temperature was just 2.7 degrees above absolute zero.

A mysterious screen of extra-loud radio noise permeates the cosmos, preventing astronomers from observing heat from the first stars. The balloon-borne ARCADE instrument discovered this cosmic static (white band, top) on its July 2006 flight. The noise is six times louder than expected. Astronomers have no idea why. (Credit: NASA/ARCADE/Roen Kelly)

Don’t you just love the last sentence in the picture caption? “Astronomers have no idea why.” And that, gentle readers, is what has motivated every scientist on the face of the planet since long before Galileo. As someone once said, the real leaps in science don’t occur in huge labs with megabudgets. The real leaps in science occur when someone says “Hmmmm . . . that’s funny . . . “. Or in this case, “What was that you said? I can’t hear you!!”

Cruise on over to the Deep Website at www.thedeepradioshow.com to learn more about space and many other topics. Enjoy!

SCARY SCENARIOS

By Pam Eastlick

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond. Visit our website at www.thedeepradioshow.com

If movie history for the last hundred years or so is any indication, we LOVE to be scared. Ghosts, vampires, zombies and hideous aliens seem to be the most popular ‘heroes’ on the block. I’m a notable exception, I haven’t seen a scary movie since I was a teenager and I’m very happy about it. But I’m obviously in the minority on that point.

So since you all love to be scared I’m going to share some stories that, to me, are a lot more scary than vampires and zombies. They’re scary stories from the world of science and they could REALLY happen!

Global warming is real scary all by itself, but what makes it so terrifying are its inevitable consequences like sea rise making our neighbor islands uninhabitable and eventually making most coastal cities submerged ghost towns. (See, that’s where the ghosts come in!)

Scientists have recently uncovered another consequence of global warming proving once again that the scariest thing is ignorance.

Up AND Down

An inescapable fact of nature is that ice is heavy and when you have lots and lots of ice in one place it compresses the land below it. The ice sheets that covered North America and northern Europe and Asia 10,000 years ago are long gone, but the land continues to slowly rise as the weight is removed.

Scientists are using POLENET, a growing network of GPS sensors and seismic detectors implanted beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet to discover that as ice melts away from Antarctica, parts of the continental bedrock are rising, just as we would expect them to do as the overburden of ice disappears. But they are also finding that, inexplicably, other parts of the continent are sinking.

Much of the data from Antarctica comes from satellites. These orbiting eyes tell us the height of the visible ice above sea level. Scientists then calculate ice thickness by subtracting the height of the earth beneath it. To do this, they must take into account whether the bedrock is rising or falling. Ice weighs down the bedrock, but as the ice melts, the earth slowly rebounds.

Gravity measurements, too, rely on knowledge of the bedrock. As the crust under Antarctica rises, the mantle layer below it flows in to fill the gap. That mass change must be subtracted from the satellite measurements done by GRACE (the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) in order to isolate gravity changes caused by the thickening or thinning of the ice.

Before POLENET, scientists had few direct measurements of the bedrock. They had to rely on computer models, which now appear to be incorrect. The models don’t match what scientists see is actually happening. There are places where the models predicted no uplift and in fact the uplift is occurring much faster than the Ice Age rebound in the northern hemisphere. And even more interesting they are also seeing evidence that other places in the Antarctic are sinking, an outcome that wasn’t predicted by any of the computer models.

POLENET’s GPS sensors measure how much the crust is rising or falling, while the seismic sensors measure the stiffness of the bedrock — a key factor for predicting how much the bedrock will rise in the future.

POLENET scientists have been implanting sensors in Antarctica since December 2007. The network will be complete in 2010 and will record data into 2012. Selected sites may remain as a permanent Antarctic observational network. Their findings will give much needed perspective to satellite instruments that measure ice loss on the continent, and help improve estimates of future sea level rise.

Eric Kendrick, a senior research associate at Ohio State, shown at a POLENET GPS site in West Antarctica. He is standing in front of solar panels, battery boxes, and wind generators used to power the GPS station. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Ohio State University.)

Another scary thing that can be triggered by rebounding bedrock is earthquakes. Virtually all the small earthquakes in northeastern Canada are triggered by the lingering effects of the huge ice mass that covered the north in the last Ice Age.

And there’s more scary news about what earthquakes can trigger. Read on for more of your scare of the day and you won’t even have to go to the movies.

TRIGGERED

We all remember the great tsunami of 2004. I am a subscriber to the USGS site Big Quake which give you e-mail alerts of major earthquakes world-wide and when I logged on to my e-mail that day I said “Something horrible has happened in Indonesia” because there was almost a full page of nothing but earthquake reports.

Of course the really bad thing about that earthquake was the tsunami it triggered. I got those e-mails early enough that if I’d realized a tsunami had been triggered and I had friends or relatives living in Madagascar, I could have warned them. But according to some new research, a tsunami wasn’t all the great Indian Ocean earthquake triggered. It also set off tremors nearly 9,000 miles away in the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, Calif.

Abhijit Ghosh, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences reports, "We found that an earthquake that happened halfway around the world triggered a seismic signal in the San Andreas fault. It’s a new kind of seismic phenomenon".

The phenomenon is called a non-volcanic tremor and the 2002 Denali earthquake in Alaska triggered a similar seismic signal but geologists are amazed that such tremors can be triggered by an event that was 9,000 miles away.

The Indian Ocean earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004, was measured at magnitude 9.2 and it generated tsunami waves that killed 250,000 people. But scientists are still amazed that even an earthquake of that magnitude could set off non-volcanic tremors so far away.

The San Andreas fault in the Parkfield region is one of the most studied seismic areas in the world. Since a 6.0 earthquake occurs there on an average of every 22 years and the fault passes near heavily populated areas, a variety of instruments have been deployed to record all seismic activity.

The non-volcanic tremors occurred at precisely the time that seismic waves from the Indian Ocean earthquake were passing the Parkfield area. These waves were recorded on a number of instruments as far as 125 miles apart.

Scientists are still uncertain whether non-volcanic tremors are related to actual slippage within an earthquake fault or is caused by the flow of fluids below the Earth’s surface. Recent research supports the idea that tremor is caused by fault slippage.

"If the fault is slipping from non-volcanic tremors in one place, it means stress is building up elsewhere on the fault, and that could bring the other area a little closer to a big earthquake," Ghosh said. "If that fault is closer to failure, then even a small amount of added stress likely can produce tremor," he said. "If the fault is already at low stress, then even high-energy waves probably won’t produce tremor."

"Our biggest finding is that even very small amounts of stress can trigger these tremors," Ghosh said. "Finding tremor can help to track evolution of stress in the fault over space a
nd time, and therefore could have significant implications in seismic hazard analysis."

The great Indian Ocean earthquake that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the day after Christmas in 2004 set off such tremors nearly 9,000 miles away in the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, Calif. (Credit: iStockphoto/Matt Matthews)

And I know that distant earthquakes can trigger local phenomena. The great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 apparently caused the collapse of the top of a 100-foot tall cavern in the Missouri Ozarks. It was in the middle of a farmer’s field and he discovered it when he was plowing. At first, he couldn’t understand why someone had dug a five-foot wide hole in the middle of his field or what they had done with the dirt. Then he looked into an abyss.

Local geologists said that the collapse of the top of the cavern which had been no more than 3-5 feet wide was triggered by the great Alaska earthquake several thousand miles away. The farmer said “I plowed over that thing for 30 years and never knew.” Scary indeed!

And now for possibly the scariest story of all. Why? Because this one may be where the zombies get real!

SPOTLESS MIND?

There are many ‘black boxes’ in science. ‘Black boxes’ are places where things happen that remain hidden from human eyes and understanding. In the human body, the liver has traditionally been a ‘black box’. Stuff goes in and stuff comes out and we don’t still don’t have a really clear idea of what all goes on in there.

But of course, the most mysterious ‘black box’ in the human body is the human brain. Just where and how is thought generated? How is information stored? And we’re still asking the question “Just where is the human ‘soul’”? But ongoing research continues to pry at the ‘black box’ and new findings suggest that the black box of the brain could be a Pandora’s box in disguise.

The brain acts as a computer to both store and process information. In a computer, separate devices perform these roles; while a hard disk stores information, the central processing unit (CPU) does the processing. But the brain is thought to perform both these functions in the same cells – neurons – leading researchers to ask if distinct molecules within the brain cells serve these different functions.

Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have recently discovered that a molecule known to preserve memories – PKMzeta – specifically stores complex, high-quality memories that provide detailed information about an animal’s location, fears, and actions, but does not control the ability to process or express this information. This finding suggests that PKMzeta erasure that is designed to target specific debilitating memories could be effective against the offending memory while sparing the computational function of brain.

One of the researchers says that PKMzeta stores only high quality memories that provide detailed information rather than general abilities. He says that if further work confirms this view we can expect to one day see therapies based on PKMzeta memory erasure. Negative memory erasing not only could help people forget painful experiences, but might be useful in treating depression, general anxiety, phobias, post-traumatic stress, and addictions, he adds.

Well, well, well. We may soon have the ability to erase unwanted memories. What a wonderful idea! But . . . what if it’s someone else who doesn’t want them?? What if you know something that someone else is desperate that you forget? Brainwashing takes on a whole new meaning doesn’t it? And what happens if you just keep right on erasing the memories? See what I mean about zombies???

Researchers have found a molecule that stores complex, high-quality memories, in a discovery that may one day lead to the ability to erase debilitating painful memories and addictions from the brain. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sebastian Kaulitzki))

Cruise on over to the Deep Website at www.thedeepradioshow.com to discover more scary scenarios! Enjoy!

FIGHTING THE INFECTIONS

By Pam Eastlick

I looked in the old file box today and discovered that the ‘medicine’ section was pretty full so here’s another slightly skewed trip into the wonderful world of the human body. Ever wonder why those lab tests cost so much? Some new research may soon help with that little problem.

LAB ON A CHIP

Low-cost, disposable cartridges that would let doctors perform diagnostic lab work in their offices could speed up diagnosis and treatment while lowering costs. European researchers are rapidly closing in on that goal.

The team is trying to produce a polymer-based device the size of a credit card that would incorporate sophisticated technologies to control the movement of biological fluids, detect the presence of specific proteins, for example early signs of cancer, and analyze the results. For each patient, the doctor would open the package, put some blood or serum on the card, let it work, and then connect it to a card reader. The relatively inexpensive card reader would display and record what the card had measured.

The research involves moving and testing very small amounts of fluid. The plastic card moves blood, serum and other fluids through channels slightly wider than a human hair.

In order to control the movement of these fluid through the tiny channels imprinted into the polymer card, the researchers developed ways to make the channel surfaces either ‘super-hydrophilic’ (water-loving) or ‘super-hydrophobic’ (water-hating). Hydrophilic surfaces wet easily. Glass is hydrophilic, which is why a thin glass tube will draw water into itself via capillary action. In contrast, hydrophobic surfaces like Teflon® repel water.

The researchers used nanotechnology to structure the interior surfaces of the device’s channels to make them far more hydrophilic than glass or far more hydrophobic than Teflon®, as needed. The super-hydrophilic channels guide the fluids to their destinations without the need for any kind of pump. In contrast, small areas with super-hydrophobic surfaces act as valves, temporarily stopping the flow of a fluid until sufficient pressure is applied to force it through.

That added pressure comes from puffs of a hydrogen-oxygen gas mixture generated by an electric voltage directed to tiny chambers filled with a water-saturated polymer gel.

The final challenge the research team faces is integrating the technologies they have honed into a single, easily reproduced card or cartridge. They plan to pack everything into one polymer-based card. The electronics that will read the cards and display the results will be a separate unit.

The researchers expect that the technologies they have refined and integrated will prove useful not just in clinics and doctors’ offices, but also in other areas where inexpensive but extremely sensitive detectors are needed.

Hmmmm. A lab on a chip.

And there’s other news about detection systems where you least expect them.

NOW THEY’RE LISTENING TOO!

We may live in one of the most isolated places on the planet, but that isolation will no longer protect us from a global flu pandemic. Although we are unlikely to catch bird flu from birds (it’s thought that infected migratory birds would die of their disease before they reached the Marianas) that certainly doesn’t stop the big metal birds from carrying infected humans to our shores. And if there is a global pandemic, the airlines may shut down to prevent the spread of the disease, making a number of other things really difficult here.

So we should all be very happy that a Belgian company has come up with a way to spot passengers who may be infected with a pandemic virus – purely from the sound of their coughing.
The system’s inventors have applied for a world patent and in the application they explain that installing many microphones in an area like an airport departure lounge makes it possible to detect and diagnose different kinds of coughs.

Their detection algorithms (read ‘computer software’) could determine whether the noise is a harmless throat clearing or a "productive" cough that may signal infection. The loudness of a cough in different microphones would make it possible to determine the location of the infected person.

The technology could also be used for animals in large areas like farms and cargo holding pens. Bird flu can also mutate in pigs (remember ‘swine flu’) so spotting sick animals early could also help stifle a potential pandemic.

The patent application also contains a more controversial suggestion: using the technology to eavesdrop on cell phone conversations. Now this is not to discover if you’re calling your doctor because you’re sick but to see if you’re coughing into it.

"Governments and national or private health agencies can use this information from several users to gain information about the spread of respiratory disease," the patent claims.

I’m not sure just how that one would go down in the US. It’s one thing to have microphones in an airport departure lounge (and in the US, that fact had better be prominently displayed), and quite another to listen to someone’s cell phone conversation just to see if they’re coughing. But I suspect that, given the consequences of having someone with virulent bird flu board an airplane to just about anywhere probably justifies the departure lounge monitoring. Are you coughing yet?

Pandemic flu sends shivers down my spine, but there’s news about another killer that’s certainly more optimistic.

HOORAY FOR THE SCAR

One of the nastiest killers of the ancient world was smallpox. Unlike flu, however, we developed an effective vaccination against this terror and smallpox was declared eradicated in December of 1979, almost 30 years ago. It is the only infectious human disease to have been wiped from the face of the planet.

Well . . . almost. The smallpox virus still exists in several labs all over the world (“How could you tell if it’s smallpox if you have nothing to compare it to.”) and there is ongoing concern that bioterrorists might obtain smallpox from such a laboratory and release it into the population. Under such circumstances, the supply of smallpox vaccine may be insufficient for universal administration.
But in a study that appeared in The American Journal of Medicine, researchers reported they’ve discovered that lifetime protection against smallpox is obtained from just one vaccination, even when that vaccination occurred as much as 88 years ago. They conclude that in the event of a smallpox bioterrorist attack, smallpox vaccine should be used first on individuals who have not been vaccinated previously.

They tested 246 people and found permanent immunity was conferred by vaccination or by survival from an active smallpox infection. In the sample, 209 subjects were vaccinated one or more times 13 to 88 years prior to the study; an additional 18 had had childhood smallpox, and 29 with no history of vaccination or smallpox were included.

Although smallpox vaccinations have been used since the late 18th century, routine vaccination was discontinued more than 30 years ago in many countries including the US. Most Americans under 35 have never been vaccinated and most over 35 have not received booster immunizations since the early 1970s. If a bioterrorist attack were to occur, it would be critical to know who already had effective immunity and would not need to be vaccinated, leaving another dose available for someone else.

Current recommendations for smallpox vaccination also suggest that people with repeated exposure to smallpox, for example travelers to endemic areas, should be revaccinated every five years. This study suggests that such reimmunizations may not be necessary because multiple vaccinations achieve only marginally higher levels of antibody
and virus neutralizing activity than single vaccination.

This is good news for someone like me who received a smallpox vaccination several years after they were no longer routinely given in the US because I was on my way to Southeast Asia. So if you’ve got the scar, smallpox is probably one thing you don’t have to worry about.
And there’s another nasty killer from our part of the world that researchers are beginning to zero in on.

ZEROING IN ON DENGUE

Researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia are making some discoveries that could contribute to the development of a vaccine and cure for West Nile virus and Dengue fever. They have identified a novel characteristic of the virus family to which these diseases belong.

Dengue fever belongs to a family of viruses called flaviviruses and the research team has discovered that all flaviviruses produce a small molecule that controls the host’s response to viral infection. This molecule essentially compromises the host’s ability to detect and fight the Dengue infection.

The researchers are using reverse genetic engineering to create viruses that don’t produce the molecule. They then showed that the engineered viruses could not infect their hosts or cause disease symptoms.

Although creating engineered viruses in the lab is a long way from disease control in the ‘wild’ any step to control Dengue is a step in the right direction. Dengue is also called ‘bonebreak’ fever. There is an old saying about flu that goes “For the first three days you’re afraid you’re going to die; for the next three days, you’re afraid you won’t.” This is also very true about the intense pain generated by Dengue fever. A variant of Dengue is hemorrhagic fever where you bleed from virtually every orifice. I repeat, ANY step to control this dreaded disease (which could be as close as the next island) is a step in the right direction.