Interesting program on NBR

[Guest guest]

At 11:00 am eastern time today, National Public Radio will have an

interesting program on The Black Death, the plague that was mankind's

greatest natural disaster. Description of the program copied below. For

those who can't tune in or don't read this in time, the program is posted at

the website one hour after the show airs. The website is:

http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/

Description:

The Black Death killed a third of the known global population in the middle

of the 14th century. A writer specializing in science and medicine draws on

first-hand accounts to paint an intimate portrait of the greatest natural

disaster to afflict humanity. He looks at new theories claiming the outbreak

was not bubonic plague, but perhaps anthrax or a disease like Ebola.

[Guest guest]

I see the marketing department of NPR is not beyond exaggeration.

Not to detract from the fact that the black death is certainly

interesting, my understanding is that the greatest known natural

catastrophe to afflict humanity occurred 70,000 years ago with the

eruption of the Toba volcano. It is estimated that 99% of the human

population died out as a result.

One might ask: " but how would they know? " . From someone I know

whose recently completed PhD thesis was in the field, the present

distribution of genes within any animal population enables the

determination of population sizes going back a very long way. These

data suggest that the human population was reduced to around 1000

individuals after that eruption.

My guess is that AIDS before it is finished may account for as large

or larger percentage of the world's population as the plague,

whatever it was.

[interesting that the growth from 1000 to the current six billion

represents an annual average rate of growth of 0.022% per year]

fwiw.

Rodney.

> At 11:00 am eastern time today, National Public Radio will have an

> interesting program on The Black Death, the plague that was

mankind's

> greatest natural disaster. Description of the program copied

below. For

> those who can't tune in or don't read this in time, the program is

posted at

> the website one hour after the show airs. The website is:

>

> http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/

>

> Description:

> The Black Death killed a third of the known global population in

the middle

> of the 14th century. A writer specializing in science and medicine

draws on

> first-hand accounts to paint an intimate portrait of the greatest

natural

> disaster to afflict humanity. He looks at new theories claiming the

outbreak

> was not bubonic plague, but perhaps anthrax or a disease like Ebola.

[Guest guest]

I'm listening right now. Although you may be right that it's not the #1

natural disaster, it was bad.

As a matter of fact he is comparing the plague, which was unparalled in it's

swift expansion around the globe (especially considering the very slow

methods of transportation then) to the present Avian flu. Of course, spread

of any new modern diseases could be very swift in our modern age.

on 3/25/2005 11:25 AM, Rodney at perspect1111@... wrote:

> My guess is that AIDS before it is finished may account for as large

> or larger percentage of the world's population as the plague,

> whatever it was.

>