Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 February 7

= February 7 =

Reynolds High School Troutdale Oregon
From Facebook profile in Wikipedia for Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon: Please also include the School logo prior to 1989. It was the Reynolds Lancers in your Reference files so we graduates prior to 1989 can use it in our profiles on different web sites. Example: On my facebook page I list Reynolds as my High School. The Currant Raiders Logo shows up from your wikipedia site. I am not sure how to change it to the Lancers Logo, it is in your info when you click on Reynolds High School. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.164.90.113 (talk) 00:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * This is not really a reference desk question, but FWIW the article in question: Reynolds High School (Troutdale, Oregon). Your points would be better raised on the article talkpage, although admittedly that may see little traffic. Re the second part of your issue, I can't immediately see where the Lancers Logo can be found; we may well not have access to the historic logo. And even if we did add it to the article, it is likely that your Facebook profile will still display the present logo as that would remain the lead image. --jjron (talk) 10:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * In other words, as of this date, the expected behavior is Facebook raisin the currant logo. Whether we should have both logos in the article or prune it down to just the one, I can not say, although more illustrations can keep an article from being too dry or shriveling down to nothing. :-) StuRat (talk) 10:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Regional Newspapers
I have been using your search engine, to assertain details of a Regional newspaper I used to work for in the early 60's. The newspaper was called the Manchester Evening Chronicle, based in Withy Grove, Shudehill, Manchestr, England, UK. Each time I enter the title,the response is "Do you mean, Manchester Evening News", and proceeds to give me pages of info about said paper. How can I access the information I require. Many thanks94.192.153.222 (talk) 02:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, there seems to be a misleading redirect here. Using our advance search feature, I can find a few articles that seem to refer to the Chronicle, but we don't have an article on it: . Sadly, though we like to convince ourselves that we have an article on everything, it seems that in this case we don't, and possibly should. I'll see if there is an appropriate place to suggest this, and also see if I can get the misleading redirect removed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems OK that Manchester Evening Chronicle redirects to Manchester Evening News. http://www.withygrovefellowship.co.uk/history/ says: "Then in 1961 the Manchester Evening News gained control of the Evening Chronicle and the “Chron” closed in 1963". Other sources agree. http://ketupa.net/gmg2.htm says: "1963 merger of Evening News and Evening Chronicle as Manchester Evening News & Chronicle". PrimeHunter (talk) 03:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, that explains it - we should probably mention the merger in the article, if we are going to have the redirect. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Why do I smell a population conspiracy with China's vehicles?
In certain cases, situations, etc., even the 1-child policy may not be doing enough, especially about the poor being public charges. Moreover, I suppose that the 1-child policy gets circumvented all the time in various ways and places.

Therefore, does China decide to take population growth control some steps further in a passive manner: By not enacting life-saving safety features on domestic vehicles that imports get to enjoy? (If not, why wouldn't they take care of this obvious problem?)

(I suppose that they don't worry about the imports' safety features because anyone who can afford them would, natch, be in the interests of the government to keep alive. Buick and Volvo may be a few of the safest examples around.)

Just look at these videos. If they don't deliberately forego mandating safety advances on domestically-produced vehicles to keep the population under control, then why don't they put them up already?

(One good sign is that the expressways still have speed limits. However, if there is a conspiracy after all, perhaps they didn't remove them because it would get obvious around the world.)

Watch how Chinese cars crash. --70.179.174.101 (talk) 07:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * A government, or any person or entity, cannot conspire with itself. I sort of get your drift, but I doubt "conspiracy" is the correct label. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  07:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Grossly simplifying things here but each extra piece of safety equipment will (generally) increase the production cost of the car, which will increase the price for the end consumer. Perhaps the Chinese government are currently focussing on getting more people into car-ownership and then in the longer term will worry about car-safety? Having seen some of the factories out there (on tv) it would seem it's not just car safety where their health & safety regulations are somewhat different to most of the western world. ny156uk (talk) 07:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Also note that back when the Western world first got into cars big time, they were rather unsafe, too. StuRat (talk) 09:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Death is expensive to an economy; killing your citizens is very different to simply reducing the birth rate. First of all, most adults who die in car accidents will be workers, and their death will leave the business in the lurch, reducing the company's efficiency. Secondly, the knock-on effects of bereavement will harm others - from an economic perspective, bad for their work or education (there are a fair few papers that investigate this, although none are Chinese. Here's one from the Phillipines). Thirdly, not everyone involved in a crash will die, and bad car crashes (particularly in cars without airbags) can lead to paralysing head and neck injuries - if your goal in reducing population is to make living more sustainable, making people unable to work would be counter to your goal, since they'd keep consuming food and energy but wouldn't be able to contribute as much back to the economy. As an aside, although China's car death rate is fairly high (slightly old data), it doesn't seem to be any worse than the other BRIC countries, and it's very low compared to most African or Middle Eastern countries. Smurrayinchester 11:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It's also worth considering that mass usage of automobiles is rather new in China and as a result there are quite a lot of patchy practices and regulations. My favorite article on the subject is here (not all online, alas, but you can Google it) — pretty amusing/horrifying from a Western perspective. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Among the main goals of China's government is to satisfy its middle class. Rising living standards is the government's main source of legitimacy in the minds of its public. That may include investors in Chinese car manufacturers, which realize a higher profit if not burdened with safety costs. It almost certainly includes middle-class consumers, who, though middle-class by Chinese standards, have much lower median incomes than North Americans and Europeans.  These people want to be able to own a car.  Safety enhancements could raise the cost of a car above their reach and make them less satisfied with their government. Marco polo (talk) 16:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Come on &mdash; have you ever known anyone whose life was saved by an air bag? Maybe you have, but at most one or two, right?  Out of all the people you'd have had a chance to find this out about?  Safety equipment has an impact on individual lives, but virtually none on demographics. --Trovatore (talk) 19:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You will, however, likely know someone who has been in some form of road-accident...and whilst they may not have died if the safety features on their car weren't there, car safety doesn't just save lives - it reduces the severity of injuries you can expect to happen. I, for instance, have a friend (driving) who was hit side-on by a car doing about 30mph . They walked away a little shaken up but entirely unharmed. Had their car not had things like airbags, seat-belts, pre-tensioners, side-impact bars, crumple-zones etc. we can quite safely assume that they may have had more serious injuries. Sure, they probably wouldn't have died but that's not the only role of car safety... ny156uk (talk) 20:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Car safety equipment does all kinds of good things. It does not, however, noticeably affect population statistics, which seemed to be what the question was about. --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Good point, wasn't thinking from population perspective! ny156uk (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There are some confusing things here that should be disentangled, lest someone get the wrong impression. One is whether traffic safety equipment works. It does work. It does affect how many people die in accidents per year. The second question is whether that matters over the total population. This is somewhat misleading. There are two statistics to pay attention to here. One is the amount of traffic deaths per so many people in the population; the other is how many traffic deaths per so many automobiles. China has OK "per population" statistics. This is probably because it has a huge population, most of whom don't drive. (They rank about the same as India here, and many other Asian nations. They are still pretty high IMO, though, considering the number of folks who don't drive, and the total number of people in the country.) China has far worse "per automobile" statistics — those who do drive are roughly 30X more likely to die than drivers in Europe or the United States. (refs). The car safety, local driving practices, and infrastructure probably contribute to that difference rather handily. That being said, I don't think the number of traffic related deaths is going to have a huge demographic impact, which is indeed what the OP was asking about. But one should not draw the conclusion that safety equipment doesn't save lives, or that traffic accidents are uncommon. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Historical US news and world report civil engineering
Does anyone have historical versions of this ranking: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-civil I can only find that year. --Waseekla (talk) 08:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This was the best site I found. I couldn't get the proper archives but Berkeley uses the U.S. News and World Report rankings to keep track of its own position and includes the top 10 from 2005-2011. I hope that this is some use to you. Biggs Pliff (talk) 05:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Uninhabited islands
Are there any uninhabited islands that could sustain long-term human settlement without substantial external support? Most of the one's I have looked at so far, have had no permanent fresh water, no flat land for farming, no easy access from the sea, or have been way too cold. Astronaut (talk) 12:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry this doesn't answer the question but I'm looking for a clarification... How can an island not have "easy access from the sea"?  Dismas |(talk) 12:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It may not have a suitable harbor, or even a beach. Some islands are cliffs on all sides.  I believe Henderson Island (Pitcairn Islands) is almost like this, although people managed to live there once. StuRat (talk) 21:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * And the whole "uninhabited island" thing. Certainly there are intentionally uninhabited islands that are reserved for wildlife.  Something more about the conditions you are setting would be good, too, is the Crusoe allowed to possess farming materials or must he live off the land?  Crusoe had the advantage of an impressive amount of salvage from shipwrecks.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * depends on what is meant by “uninhabited”. Alarbus (talk) 12:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Inaccessible Island is actually accessible for the sufficiently determined, and has been inhabited. It's presently a nature reserve.   Acroterion   (talk)   14:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

By "no easy access from the sea" I mean an island that is surrounded by steep cliffs. For example, the islands of St Kilda are substantially surrounded by steep cliffs that make access very difficult. (edit) I'm thinking of the kind of island on which you could be shipwrecked, but it is nice enough that you might decide to not seek rescue, and without officious park rangers coming by to shoo you off this island paradise. Astronaut (talk) 12:23, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well there's Taransay (if you don't mind a few holidaymakers). See also Lucy Irvine. Good luck!--Shantavira|feed me 12:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Tetepare Island looks promising - it had a thriving native population until the mid-19th century. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Bikini Atoll - if you don't mind an early death from cancer. Roger (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That's overstating the risk rather a lot. In 1997 – fifteen years ago – the estimated exposure for an individual living on Bikini and eating a locally-grown diet was 15 mSv per year.  That's significantly more than typical background in most (but not all) places, but it's still not a huge dose.  Nuclear industry workers in most jurisdictions are limited to an average of 20 mSv per year of occupational exposure (with a maximum of up to 50 mSv in any one year).  Pilots and aircrew who regularly fly the New York to Tokyo polar route receive about 9 mSv per year from increased exposure to cosmic rays.
 * If you spent thirty years on the island eating the local food, you'd pick up a total of about 0.5 Sv, which adds roughly a 2% chance to your lifetime risk of dying of cancer. (For comparison, the 'normal' lifetime risk of dying from cancer is about 23%; the radiation exposure on the island would bump that to about 25%.)  I'd be much more concerned about the lack of timely access to modern medical care. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It's also not clear that any cancers would be "early". The probable development time for that sort of thing is usually 20-30 years or so. As far as risks of living on an uninhabited island go, that's a relatively non-risky. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Scotland has a number of islands that held often substantial populations in the past, but have now been abandoned. Having sustained settlement in the past (in some cases for over 1,000 years), they could presumably do so again (conservation status notwithstanding). This site has quite a good 'shopping list' of islands, and our article List of islands of Scotland has a list of uninhabited islands to look at as well. This site should explain about the access rights, if you were thinking of setting up on one of these islands, but the site seems to be down right now. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The Kerguelen Islands southeast of Africa have a lot of space, a flock of sheep as well as feral sheep, reindeer and rabbits, native vegetation and a bearable climate. Yet it has no permanent population due to its isolation from everywhere else. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Clipperton_Island is a good candidate. --Kvasir (talk) 18:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There are a number of uninhabited islands in the Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon which could sustain a small population of sufficiently vigorous hunters/gatherers/anglers, if not for government regulation precluding settlement. Vein, Wilson, Simpson and St. Ignace of the Casque Isles near the north shore of Superior are all large and sustain populations of Cervidae and hares--and wolves and coyotes and foxes in turn. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And, incidentally, are also good examples of islands without easy access from the sea. Warofdreams talk 11:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I suppose that depends on what you mean by "sea". See definition 4 on: -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 12:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As the OED notes, this use is obsolete, except in the phrase "inland sea" and in certain proper nouns. Warofdreams talk 12:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And as an "inland" sea is exactly as you see Lake Superior described nowadays, e.g.: []. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Although it appears "freshwater sea" also occurs:    — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atethnekos (talk • contribs) 21:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Driving without lights
The question above about Chinese car safety reminded me about a question I was going to ask as a follow up to my earlier question about driving in China. One of the links provided in response to my earlier question, pointed out that some drivers in China drive at night without turning on their lights. I have heard the same said of drivers in many other parts of the World (usually developing countries). Why on Earth would anyone, whether in a developing country or not, drive at night without turning on their lights? Surely this creates an unacceptable hazard to the driver and to other road users including pedestrians, donkey carts, cyclists, or truck drivers. Yet it seems a common enough occurrence that some travel advice sites specifically mention this as a significant hazard and reason enough to not drive at night (refs:, , , , etc). Astronaut (talk) 12:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Sounds like colloquial bullshit to me or at most hyperbole. These warnings seem to all be of wildly different countries with the supposed rationale that the people in question are too primitive to know that turning off the lights does not save fuel.


 * In all my years in a remote portion of a third world country, I have only encountered a handful of instances where people were driving without lights at night. And those cases were obviously not by choice; more than a few were driving slowly on the shoulder of the road instead, and a couple were valiantly using flashlights as makeshift headlights. In all these instances, it was quite obvious that the reason was because their headlights malfunctioned in the middle of nowhere and rather than stopping in an unfamiliar place, the drivers opted to go on in the hopes of finding a repair shop (which may be miles away). Streetlights are not quite as ubiquitous in the highways of developing countries (especially in rural areas), it's really quite impossible to drive here at night without lights so there's absolutely no reason I can think of where anyone would do this by choice.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  14:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Does turning off lights really not save fuel? I mean, I'm sure it doesn't save much.  But the energy to light them has to come from somewhere, and it's not from waste heat like the heater.  I suppose it might make you drive differently, which could swamp the effect from the extra resistance in the drive train, but I'm not sure in which direction.  --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If each headlight uses 55W and we make a generous assumption for the other lights, instrument lights, and occasional use of high beams, we might get to 200W. 1 HP about equals 750W, so they might use about 1/4 HP all told. Most cars normally use only a fraction of their rated horsepower, but the added load would still be under 1% of normal power generation.  Acroterion   (talk)   22:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * and  Apparently in the UK in built-up areas with sufficient street lighting, only the side lights need be on. Collect (talk) 14:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That Brit Highway Code Lighting requirements (113-116) cited by Collect is different from US driving laws I seen, which require headlights at night regardless of whether you're in a city with street lights. If the alternator or other battery-charging circuitry in a car fails, a charged battery (perhaps charged from an AC powered battery charger before the drive) can power the ignition for a very long time. In battery statistics, this time is the "reserve capacity" (as opposed to the "cold cranking amps"). This rating might be an hour and a half or longer. If loads such as headlights, fans,air conditioner and  a radio are operated, the battery may be so drained that it cannot run the ignition after a fraction of that time, leaving the passengers stranded. Doubtless some motorists have chosen to drive home without headlights rather than paying for a tow truck, emergency road service, a motel, etc., even if they run the risk of hitting something or being hit.  Some cars have the safety feature that the headlights go on automatically when it gets dark, or they are on in a less bright "running light" mode whenever the car is running. Also there is the possibility as Obsidian mentioned, that the headlights might have suddenly failed, and the motorist thought it better to drive without than to stop and wait for daylight, or leave the car and walk, if they did not have a celphone and AAA available. Maybe if they are poor or stupid, they let the headlights degrade until high beam and low beam were burned out on both sides. Even then, there are "fog lights" on some cars which would provide some illumination.  I've always thought it a good practice to carry in the car emergency kit  fused test leads with which I could power up a headlight directly from the battery if the headlight switch or relay failed.  There are "urban legends" of street gangs whose initiation requires the wannabe member to murder some motorist who flashes his headlights at their car, which is driving with the headlights off.  See Snopes . Edison (talk) 16:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I have heard of this in two instances. The first, and probably more reliable is from Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog, where Lakota young men would apparently drive at excessive speeds without headlights on unlit roads at night.  It's been a little while since I read the book, but if I remember correctly, Crow Dog states that this arises out of a desire for the men to prove themselves, as they could no longer adequately demonstrate their ability as warriors.  The second is from WikiTravel, stating that in Georgia (I may be mistaken) it's the "macho" thing to do to drive without lights.  In any case, I can no longer find mention of headlights in that article, so either it's the wrong one, or someone has removed that piece of information.  Likely it is just a rumor. Falconus p  t   c 17:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Driving at night without headlights is not uncommon in the former Soviet Union, though usually only on well-lit streets. Many people say that they forget to turn them on. Some say that they are trying to conserve gasoline or battery charge. There is a widespread notion that you can drain your battery if you are stuck in stop-and-go traffic with your headlights on. Some are simply not concerned whether others can see them or not. One additional problem is that, in many cars, there's no light sensor, auto headlight shutoff, or intelligent electronics of any kind. If you manually turn on the headlights and then forget to turn them off before walking away from the car, either headlights or some peripheral lights (parking lamps, taillights) might stay on, and the battery could be dead by the time you get back.--Itinerant1 (talk) 22:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There's also that as well. The things western motorists take for granted - tow trucks, motels, 24-hour [franchised] repair services, etc. do not exist or are rare in newly or non-industrialized countries outside of large cities. Tow-trucks and repair services particularly. I've never even seen a tow-truck in my life, LOL. The closest I've gotten to are helpful passing motorists who offer to tow a stranded vehicle (usually long-haul truck drivers who regularly help other truck drivers in the same circumstances). And sure, you can get the number of your neighborhood mechanic, but chances are you'll be hours away from them when you do break something and they'll probably be asleep. Meanwhile, you face the choice of leaving the car (and have it stolen), staying in it (and possibly get mugged or worse), flagging down passing motorists (who will almost always never stop at night), or try to make it to the nearest place you can leave it safely at least (and possibly get in a pileup). The anecdotes of drivers without headlights do not seem to mention whether they encountered them in cities or in highways though.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  17:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Western motorists also take for granted that when the mechanic says "it's your headlight relay" they will then walk over to a shelf and take a new one out of a box, or call NAPA to have one delivered in an hour or two. Franamax (talk) 18:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Talking of taking things for granted, the NAPA that is the National Automotive Parts Association (as opposed to the Pakistani National Academy of Performing Arts or the National Academy for Prisons Administration, for example) services the USA, Canada, Mexico and parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. There's more to the West than those places.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Then there is the Readers Digest anecdote of a German technologist right after World War 2 who was nabbed by US soldiers while driving at night without headlights, using infrared vision technology, while attempting to get from the Soviet zone to the US zone of occupation. Edison (talk) 06:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Scotland has it's fair share of idiots who drive either without headlights on or with one broken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.142.228 (talk) 08:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

A friend of mine experienced this near one of Egypt's Red Sea resorts. A small convoy of taxis were ferrying passengers along a desert road at night and they took it in turns to be the front vehicle, which was the only one to have its lights on. Apparently, that wasn't the only hair-raising aspect of their driving. --Dweller (talk) 16:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Identify book and author
My professor was telling us this anecdote about a book he'd read (he said it was "The Fourth Horseman" by Stephen King, but I searched and found no book of that name by any author, let alone King) which was about a lab somewhere in Texas (?) that researched in new strains of viruses, meant for biological weapons. It dealt with how one day, there was a malfunction, and two of the infected guards left the area, and contaminated the people in the city by sneezing. Does anyone know which book he's actually talking about? Apparently, each short episode of contaminating a new person ended with the phrase "and he sneezed" which showed the first symptoms of the virus becoming active in the host's body. 117.226.141.77 (talk) 19:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Sounds like The Stand to me; there's an essay about it entitled The Fourth Horseman in "The Science of Stephen King: From Carrie to Cell, The Terrifying Truth Behind the Horror Master's Fiction" (ISBN 0471782475). --jpgordon:==( o ) 21:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I saw the movie, but didn't read the book. I liked the start of the movie, which was about science gone wrong, but not the end, by which time it morphed into a supernatural fight with the Devil.  They did seem to get a bit carried away with how quickly the disease killed, though.  In the lab they had people drop dead instantly upon exposure.  Is the book the same ? StuRat (talk) 21:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The book is much better, because it is mostly about the two "forces" (Randall Flagg in Vegas and the Old Lady in Colorado) "drawing" people to them. The "final battle" at the end is much less of a thing in the book; the TV movie version condenses all of the various journeys the characters take; so it emphasizes the ending more than the book does.  -- Jayron  32  06:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The book doesn't fall for the instant-death trope, but the latency and incubation periods for the disease are suspiciously – implausibly – short. The book's first victim is symptomatic perhaps five hours after exposure and dead within less than a day of exposure.  Exposed individuals tend to be infectious within very brief periods of time after exposure.  Aside from irking the readers who know something about infectious diseases, I think that King made a mistake in passing up the extra bit of suspense that a more realistic latency period could have offered.  I haven't seen the film, but the book relies quite heavily on the annoying supernatural stuff, too.  (The major criticism I would have is that King violates an implicit promise to his readers&mdash;the story spends a lot of time setting itself up as a science fiction disease-outbreak thriller, but it turns out that's all just window dressing and plot machinery to arrange the final battle between mystical Good and magical Evil.)  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * What bothered me about it was that Good and Evil were both located in the U.S. It makes me wonder if someone in Juarez got called either to Nuevo Laredo or Culiacán. :)  (And how about illegals staying in the U.S.?)  Our data on incubation periods of various viruses don't go under a day, which seems right; at least influenza is one of the faster ones - but speedying up the replication of a normal virus is quite a trick. Wnt (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * A Canticle for Liebowitz and Swan Song are also guilty of making god and the devil American. I liked both better than The Stand though.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  07:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)