Re: 1teraflops cell processor possible?

Robert Myers wrote:

<snip>
> 2. Infectious diseases arise as if out of nowhere and because of
> modern transportation girdle the globe in a matter of days.  It is
> astonishing that HIV hasn't transformed itself into something more
> durable, virulent and deadly because of the frequency with which it
> mutates and reproduces itself.  It seems as if the SARS epidemic was
> an exceedingly close call.

There's a relationship between how fast a disease develops and how far 
it propagates: The slower the development the further it spreads before 
it is detected.

SARS is a good example of this. Symptoms develops quickly and people are 
put in quaranteen. Heck even the chinese could manage to get SARS under 
control. So the fear for a flu-like HIV killer is, IMHO, an overreaction 
(at least from a global health point of view). Another example is ebola, 
spreads pretty much on touch (body fluids though) and kills quickly -> 
carriers get wiped out quickly.

HIV is pretty much as bad as it gets. The combination of a long (years) 
incubation period, combined with the fact that it is infectious very 
soon after infection allows it to spread wide. The only thing that 
compares is the plague which incidentally had a similar pattern 
(although the timescales are much smaller).

Martin