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About 3.3 million Americans have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine thinks they’re the ones spreading most of the computer viruses. He says, “With millions of compulsive people out there getting messages that say things like ‘Open the important attachment!’?you don’t need anything more than that simple demand to propagate a virus. All you need is?a note that says, ‘Open me!’ and millions of poor souls with OCD will open it.”
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California has a new law called Proposition 65, which requires warning labels on any food with known health risks. Restaurants there may have to start labeling Freedom fries, because like all heated carbohydrates, they contain acrylamide, which has been shown to cause cancer.

Not everyone thinks this is a good idea. Toxicologist Takayuki Shibamoto says, “We’ve been eating foods with acrylamide ever since the discovery of fire.”

You can create genetically-modified versions of food that won’t produce acrylamide when heated, but, as Shibamoto says, “In order to make just one potato chip, you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars.” And people who worry about acrylamide also tend to be wary of GM foods.
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While the latest SARS case in China escaped from a laboratory where it was being studied, most of last year’s SARS epidemic wasn’t spread from person to person?it was spread by one person flushing the toilet.

Amanda Gardner writes in abcnews.com that despite all the SARS research, scientists still can’t figure out how the virus was transmitted so widely and quickly. Dr. Tak-sun Ignatius Yu says, “Future prevention and protection against SARS should take into consideration the possibility [that] airborne transmission avoidance of close contacts alone may not be adequate. The prevention of aerosolization of the virus source should take priority.”
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On September 29, a crazily-rotating, dumbbell-shaped asteroid the size of a small city will pass closer to Earth than any other asteroid this century?but it won’t hit us. When astronomers say asteroid Toutatis will come “close,” they mean it will be a million miles away from us.
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