Interesting

New Course by Royal Navy: A Campaign to Recruit Gays
By SARAH LYALL, The New York Times, February 22, 2005

LONDON, Feb. 21 - Five years after Britain lifted its ban on gays in the military, the Royal Navy has begun actively encouraging them to enlist and has pledged to make life easier when they do.
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Science Tuesday - Physics, Pertussis, and Schistosomiasis

Women in Physics Match Men in Success
By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times, February 22, 2005

Only about one-eighth of the physics professors at Harvard are women, a statistic that might seem to support the recent assertion by its president, Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, that fewer women than men are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He also suggested that a difference in "intrinsic aptitude" between the sexes might help explain the disparity.

A report released Friday by the American Institute of Physics offers a contradictory conclusion: after they earn a bachelor's degree in physics, American women are just as successful as men at wending their way up the academic ladder.
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Enduring and Painful, Pertussis Leaps Back
By KATE MURPHY, The New York Times, February 22, 2005

For six months last year, Jill Wilson had a persistent cough. "It was so harsh and deep that I broke ribs," she said.

Various medical specialists told Ms. Wilson, an otherwise fit 60-year-old, that she had bronchitis, asthma, allergies and perhaps even a serious lung disorder known as interstitial pulmonary fibrosis.

"All wrong," said Ms. Wilson, a retired president of a real estate management company who lives in San Antonio.

It wasn't until she saw an infectious disease expert that Ms. Wilson learned that she had pertussis, or whooping cough.

Commonly thought of as a childhood illness controlled by routine vaccination, pertussis is a growing health threat in the United States. The incidence is highest among adolescents and adults, who are often unaware that they have the highly communicable, debilitating and sometimes deadly disease.
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XINMIN VILLAGE JOURNAL: A Deadly Fever, Once Defeated, Lurks in a Chinese Lake
By JIM YARDLEY, The New York Times, February 22, 2005

XINMIN VILLAGE, China - Had she been younger, Liao Cuiying might have been mistaken for pregnant, standing beside a watery ditch with a hard, distended belly that spoke not of imminent life but approaching death.

Her village is surrounded by Dongting Lake, an immense inkblot of brown water that sustains villages of fishermen and farmers. Mrs. Liao, 55, had regularly washed her vegetables in a nearby stream and cut wood in the damp soil beside the lake.

They were mundane, daily tasks that would cost Mrs. Liao her life, because Dongting Lake carries a complicated burden for those who depend on it: people cannot touch the water. It is infested with a water borne parasite called schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever, which can penetrate a person's skin after only 10 seconds of contact and cause serious illness, even death.
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