Word: viruses
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Looking back, my roommates probably started growing out of first-year girl syndrome, a common virus, sometime in October. When we went out, they were much less naive about how to protect themselves...
...Problem is, more mornings than not, I'm met with the dispiriting news that a new high-tech bug is stalking my computer. By 10:30 or so, I've reached a state of low-grade panic; I have a third cup of coffee and imagine the virus circling my e-mail in-box like a vulture hunting for injured prey. And I know I'm in for it, because let's face facts: In the grand scheme of the Internet world, I'm roughly the equivalent of a field mouse who's had both its knees kicked...
...talk titled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," in which he suggested that it would one day be possible to build machines so tiny they would consist of just a few thousand atoms. (The term nanotechnology comes from nanometer, or a billionth of a meter; a typical virus is about 100 nanometers across...
Perhaps even more daunting, in the face of Internet-wide virus attacks, is the realization that we will depend in larger and larger measure on the network's functioning reliably. Making this system of millions of networks sufficiently robust and resilient is a challenge for the present generation of Internet engineers. Failure could portend an increasingly fragile future. But I am an optimist. I believe we are going to live in a world abundant with information and with the tools needed to use it wisely...
...Viruses often cause massive failure in staple crops in developing countries. Two years ago, Africa lost more than half its cassava crop--a key source of calories--to the mosaic virus. Genetically modified, virus-resistant crops can reduce that damage, as can drought-tolerant seeds in regions where water shortages limit the amount of land under cultivation. Biotech can also help solve the problem of soil that contains excess aluminum, which can damage roots and cause many staple-crop failures. A gene that helps neutralize aluminum toxicity in rice has been identified...