Captain Tripps Is On The Line

Maybe it's not as bad as the killer virus from The Stand, but this SARS thing is looking pretty bad. Flu-like illness probably caused by a new coronavirus, the kind of virus that is very resistant to treatment and killed the aliens in War of the Worlds. Aside from the fear of contagion and the lingering apocalyptic wariness, I'm interested in this idea of new viruses. Okay, viruses are generally considered to be bad for humans, and I agree. But isn't it amazing how they grow, mutate, become resistant to drugs, and evolve? They go through this process much faster than any other organism (it seems, I Am Not a Scientist). Viruses are scary, but I can see why some people would want to devote their lives to studying them, whether they cared about curing disease or not. Hmm, maybe I should have been a scientist. I love experiments. But I could never get that damn pipette to work!