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Every mid-Summer, flesh-eating bacteria found along the coast kills and maims a very small number of Americans. Called Vibrio vulnificus, my contribution to science was discovering what it produced that made it lethal. It makes an enzyme, collagenase, that digests collagen, the protein that makes up connective tissue and filler throughout your body. Said another […]
Magazines and news organs are obsessed with rating schools. Today’s example, CNN Money’s list of universities that produce the “highest paid grads.” They all cluster around computer science, engineering and hard science degrees. Lehigh, my alma mater, is number six in the list. As far as LU went, the benefits of the school reputation, when […]
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An Ohio State University study estimates the cost of foodborne illness in the US at $77 billion/year. The study also breaks out which microorganisms cost the most and which are the most expensive per person. At the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy: Although the estimated annual toll of foodborne illnesses and deaths in […]
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I stepped into cyberspace in the early Nineties. Originally, I went under the rubric of the old electronic Crypt Newsletter, an e-zine devoted to hacker culture. Specifically, it centered on the worldwide network of young computer virus-writers. For years, well before the web was what it is today, Crypt Newsletter was hosted on a server […]