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Police in Hong Kong arrested three men on suspicion of manslaughter, several local news media reported, in connection with a blaze that has killed at least 75 people and left hundreds missing in the city’s deadliest fire in years. Hundreds of residents were evacuated as the fire which started on Wednesday afternoon, spread across seven of the eight high-rise apartment buildings in a housing complex in Tai Po district, a suburb in the New Territories. At least 29 others remained hospitalized. Bright flames and smoke shot out of windows as night fell. Authorities said earlier that investigators would be looking into factors including whether material on the exterior walls of high-rise buildings met fire resistance standards, as the rapid spread of the fire was unusual…Officials said the fire started on the external scaffolding of one of the buildings, a 32-storey tower, and later spread to inside the building and then to nearby buildings, likely aided by windy conditions…The housing complex consisted of eight buildings with almost 2,000 apartments housing about 4,800 residents, including many elderly people. It was built in the 1980s and had recently been undergoing a major renovation. Was this tragedy accidental, caused by human arson, or something more deeply sinister?1 views0 answers0 votes
To help probe the issue of viral involvement in cancer, a study was reported in 2018 of a library of gene sequence data on file for a repository of normal and malignant human tissue samples from 3,052 participants across 22 different cancer types. Results showed that five viral families are prevalent in human cancer. These include the Papillomaviridae, Polyomoviridae, Hepadnaviridae, Flaviviridae, and Herpesviridae. Viruses were detected in 7.5 – 98.8% of patients of seven cancers: bladder carcinoma, cervical squamous cell carcinoma, colon adenocarcinoma, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, liver hepatocellular carcinoma, rectum adenocarcinoma, and stomach adenocarcinoma. [Cantalupo PG, Katz JP, Pipas JM. Viral sequences in human cancer. Virology. 2018 Jan 1;513:208-216.] Having found that viral sequences were present in most of the files they analyzed from human tumor databases, the authors pointed out there are two possible explanations: first, a given virus may be present in human tissue because it infects humans, perhaps even contributing to tumorigenesis; and second, the viral detection may be due to an artifact. This seems to ignore additional uncertainties. Such studies showing evidence of a viral presence assume it to be an aggravating factor, a “driver” of malignancy and not necessarily a cause. However, if a low-level, smoldering, virus causes malignant transformation, once that is triggered, it need not continue growing in order for tumors to form and spread, so a low number of virus particles might end up being deadly but disregarded as having an important role if only present in low numbers or below level of detection. Also, there is the limitation that only known viral sequences were searched for, so no novel viruses could even be discovered by this survey. What is Creator’s perspective?0 views0 answers0 votes
Nicola