Infection control products

Multiple Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter posts have shared a warning about contaminated needles being planted in public areas in India to cause multiple new cases of HIV infection. The claim is false; it is a longstanding HIV hoax which references non-existent sources; experts say that while the virus can be spread via used needles, the risk of being infected in this manner is "extremely low".This post was shared to a Facebook group with more than 17,000 members on June 5, 2017.The lengthy caption of the post states in part: “FROM Arvind Khamitkar, I.A.S, Director of Medical & Research Div, Chennai“A few weeks ago, in a movie theatre, a person felt something poking from her seat. When she got up to see what it was, she found a needle sticking out of the seat with a note attached saying ‘You have just been infected by HIV’. “The Disease Control Center (in Paris) reports many similar events in many other cities recently. All tested needles were HIV … [Read more...] about Fact-check: HIV-infected needle attacks taking place in India?

The case of a Colorado teenager who died this month of a rare case of plague has revived concerns about a disease many people wrongly assume died out in the Middle Ages. Taylor Gaes died June 8 -- the day after his 16th birthday -- of what was later confirmed to be plague. Officials say this is the first case of the disease since 1999 in Larimer County, about 2 hours north of Denver. Gaes, a top high school athlete who was both football quarterback and starting pitcher on his baseball team, started feeling sick with flu-like symptoms earlier this month, CBS Denver reports. A few days later, when he began coughing up blood, his parents rushed him to a hospital in Fort Collins. They were just 5 miles away when Gaes stopped breathing and died. Plague can be treated with antibiotics if it's caught early, but that doesn't always happen because the illness is so rare and initial symptoms like fever and body aches mimic those of the flu. "The quick onset like he had, often accompanied by some … [Read more...] about How does plague spread in the U.S.?

Compared to other advanced countries, high-speed Internet access in the US is in notoriously sorry shape, with high bills and low customer satisfaction. Even as commercials exhort customers to download music and stream movies, most ISPs are implementing data caps. Netflix and other movie-on-demand services are among the most popular online destinations, accounting for almost 30 percent of peak-time Internet traffic in North America, but using Netflix every night can bump a customer right up against their ISP's download cap. Hosting your own game or Web server can also run afoul of ISP restrictions, either because ISPs block the ports you want to use or because running servers on a home connection violates the ISP's terms of service. And computers and portable devices with ridiculous amounts of storage and processing power mean that everyone is creating content to share, but tiny upload pipes make that sharing unreasonably difficult. But there is another … [Read more...] about Why I pay extra for “business-class” broadband at home

Within the last two years, routers have gone from ugly boxes tucked away in shame to well-designed products, complete with a variety of new technologies and user-friendly interfaces. Led by ambitious startups like Eero, Luma, and Starry, and even bigger companies like Google’s OnHub, routers are having a gadget moment—and that could finally help people realize how important the little box really is. Our home routers are now clogged with data not just from laptops, which most routers were originally designed to handle, but also smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, smart locks, smart TVs, toasters, and even wine bottles. We’re also hogging lots more bandwidth than we used to thanks to online streaming sites like Netflix. Companies like Nvidia are even trying to livestream games. It’s definitely a different world then when old router champions, like Linksys and Netgear, reigned supreme. Advertisement So who are the up-and-coming potential titans of wi-fi? … [Read more...] about These Three Companies Want to Revolutionize the Most Important Gadget in Your Home