2015 news: Jize and Kianboon

Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160128-zika-virus-birth-defects-brian-damage-history-science/

Summary:
Scary new viruses emerge abruptly in our modern world, provoking stark headlines and demands for bold government action, but in most cases the causes are complex and have developed unnoticed for a long period of time. That’s true again for Zika, a virus unknown to most people until recent days, which is now suddenly spreading explosively and being deadly to humans. These viruses are not due to bad luck, but on the contary, due to the things that we do as a modern society. Traveling and transporting things quickly around the globe while having babies to the point where there are 7 billion of us on this planet makes us an irresistible resources to viruses that can adapt to preying upon us.

Opinion:
The thought that such deadly viruses, capable of causing widespread illness, could develop unseen by the human eye to the point when we cannot cure them with our current level of medicine, is quite scary. What is also particularly interesting about this article is how we have apparently brought such life threatening illnesses upon ourselves. The huge advancement in technology over the past decade have given us a much better life, with increased convenience in almost every aspect. The ability to quickly transport goods or to travel ourselves all across the globe in a matter of hours is one such example, but could these advancements in technology actually have led to our demise? At the cost of convenience, could we have also given the viruses convenience as well, allowing them to easily spread to all corners of the globe and infect many major regions at once? It is a scary thought, and one that we must accept. This fact has not gone unnoticed however, as in the current society, more and more governments are rapidly trying to clamp down on the spread of viruses, from spot checks at airports and needing to have a letter from your doctor if you are ill stating that you are well enough to board the plane and fly to another country, which shows that they have knowledge on this and are trying their best to stop it. Thus, we feel that this article should be on the front page due to how interesting and thought provoking it is, along with the fact that it should be made known to the public, so that more people can understand that this is happening and take the necessary precautions to prevent such viruses from spreading even further.