Thursday, April 02, 2009

Outwitting the Next Pandemic

Nathan Wolf on the TED Blog:
Virus hunter Nathan Wolfe is outwitting the next pandemic by staying two steps ahead: discovering new, deadly viruses where they first emerge -- passing from animals to humans among poor subsistence hunters in Africa -- before they claim millions of lives.

He discusses the need for developing domesticated wild game,as a means of mitigating the effects of threatened wild game . Grasscutters(covered earlier) -- large grass-eating rodents that you find throughout West and Central Africa -- are easy to grow, non-endangered and tasty. They have the potential to provide livelihoods for rural populations. At the same time, they'll decrease hunting of wild animal populations, such as species of non-human primates.

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