Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, jlms qkw, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, health, energy, and the environment.
Between now and the general election, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in states with competitive contests for the U.S. Senate and Governor. Competitive states will be determined based on the percentage chance to win at Daily Kos Election Outlook. Those that show the two major party candidates having probabilities to win between 20% and 80% inclusive will count as competitive states. According to the latest diary entry using this tag, the states with competitive races for the U.S. Senate are Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, and New Hampshire, and the states with competitive races for Governor include Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
Tonight's edition features the research and outreach stories from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
This week's featured story comes from Reuters and The Guardian, hat/tip to annetteboardman.
Traveler from Liberia is first Ebola patient diagnosed in U.S. By Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley on Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:11pm EDT.
A man who flew from Liberia to Texas has become the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus to be diagnosed in the United States, health officials said on Tuesday, a sign the outbreak ravaging West Africa may spread globally.
The patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters. He was admitted two days later to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
U.S. health officials and lawmakers have been bracing for the eventuality that a patient would arrive on U.S. shores undetected, testing the preparedness of the nation's healthcare system. On Tuesday, Frieden and other health authorities said they were taking every step possible to ensure the virus did not spread widely.
"It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks," Frieden told a news conference. "I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States."
Ebola isn’t the big one. So what is? And are we ready for it?
Humanity is locked in a millennia-old battle to the death with diseases. The current outbreak of Ebola reminds us that as our cities get bigger and international travel easier, the risks in an outbreak grow even higher
Nicky Woolf in New York
Friday 3 October 2014
The Black Death swept into Europe on boats from the East in the 14th century, killing as much as half the population of the continent, somewhere between 75 and 200 million people worldwide.
The Spanish flu of 1918, carried around the world by soldiers bound for or returning from the butchery of Europe’s battlegrounds, killed between 50 and 100 million people – many more than died in the First World War itself, and maybe more than have died in any war.
More stories after the jump.
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