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An AI Hunts the Wild Animals Carrying Ebola
the_newsbeagle writes: Outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola follow a depressing pattern: People start to get sick, public health authorities get wind of the situation, and an all-out scramble begins to determine where the disease started and how it's spreading. Barbara Han, a code-writing ecologist, hopes her algorithms will put an end to that reactive model. She wants to predict outbreaks and enable authorities to prevent the next pandemic. Han takes a big-data approach, using a machine-learning AI to identify the wild animal species that carry zoonotic diseases and transmit them to humans.
FTFA:
Yeah, nothing to indicate this approach might work in identifying likely reservoir hosts, and also tracking conditions where a disease outbreak is more likely.
Perhaps you should have read the WHOLE article, and not just the first paragraph or two?
Well, did you keep scrolling?
Sure sounds to me that, for the North American populations they tested this one they actually did demonstrate it actually works.
I'm sure it's not perfect or complete, but it sure sounds like it actually created some testable results.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Isn't it just a matter of time? Pandemics have swept through humanity fairly regularly. Modern countries seem to have escaped them for the most part recently, partly because they've got stuff like fresh water and septic systems, partly because medical science inoculates against some of them, and partly because self-awareness has enabled us to minimize others (AIDS).
But it seems like eventually something will come along that none of those things does much for, at least in the short term.
Sometimes I think we are like the fire-suppressed forests. We have been putting out fires for a hundred years, letting the understory build up until finally a fire feeds on this accumulated fuel and rages unstoppable. As disease suppression allows the human understory to build relentlessly, one day a disease will come along that rages through the population.
She wants to predict outbreaks and enable authorities to prevent the next pandemic.
it's easy to prevent, you just need good sanitation laws. the problem we face is corrupt governments who don't give a flying fuck about their people. there is a reason that outbreaks start in poor areas with bad/no sanitation practices.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If you confuse a serious response as an explanation of a joke, then you're a shitty moron.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
We are making some changes on that front. We are starting to look critically at overuse and misuse of anti-biotics. We are starting to look positively at some of the things that grow inside of us. Of the many things we do terribly, we actually might be able to turn this one around before it bites us too badly.
Yes, I guess I am.
"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
The min-use of antibiotics and the decreasing vaccination rate is going to set the stage for a pretty bad epidemic.
It's only a matter of time.
"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
Sure sounds to me that, for the North American populations they tested this one they actually did demonstrate it actually works.
Not really. While they were crunching numbers, other scientists not connected in any way with this project identified a couple of rodents that are disease vectors. It turned out that those two rodents were in her "maybe a vector" bucket. All that demonstrates is that those two are not false positives.
"Outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola follow a depressing pattern: People start to get sick, public health authorities get wind of the situation, and an all-out scramble begins to determine where the disease started and how it's spreading"
I though Ebola spread because of the traditional burial practices of the indigenous peoples. Namely some traditional healer traveling from the next village over, performing a 'purification' ritual, consisting of a crude form of embalming and 'sitting in' with the deceased. The healer goes back to her home village and dies from Ebola. People from miles around attend the funeral and go back home and spread Ebola. Over three hundred cases from the one funeral ref.
Anyone else imagine Arnold calling up wild animals from a pay phone?