h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Return of the Plague - A1125523
Author: Lampost_of_the_Babblefishes - U236290

I'm not sure its quite apporiate, but I feel it's important. Let me know what I should do with it, okay?

It looks like you know enough GML to insert graphics. How about a few paragraph ' and ' separators to make it more readable?

We towels aren't known for having great eyesight.

I'm not sure that I like this article, because without paragraphs, I found it very difficult to read. Can you put some paragraphs in, please? While you are at it, you might as well remove all those pictures. Pictures are not allowed in Edited Entries, except those provided by the editors.

It is not a good idea to start a serious article about the plague with "Ring a ring of roses". It is generally accepted that this poem is _not_ about the plague and that this story was invented as an urban myth, so it makes the rest of your entry seem less credible.

there is an entry about the the plague already at A889509 so it may be worth linking to it or trying to add more than that that guide entry offers

hello there

as sir mort has pointed out, there *is* already an edited article on this topic. however, i feel that it would not be wrong for you to write another article on it if you approach the subject from another angle, and cover the bases that jimi x missed. for instance, you could talk about the mentality of the people during the middle ages when this happened and how plague-ridden europe was like (there's quite a good bit of history about it in peter brookesmith's book 'biohazard') and how the people dealt with the situation.

and then there's your bit about why it may re-emerge, which is a really good topic to discuss. one of the things jimi left out was the genetics of it, which i feel tells a rather interesting story. let's see if i remember my facts - if i recall correctly, a bunch of scientists once undertook to study what would happen if they mutated a couple of genes in the relatively harmless yersinia enterocolitica... i can't remember exactly what the genes encoded, but i think they were proteases... to their amazement (and horror), the bug's virulence increased by about 10,000x, making it about as vicious as its cousin y. pestis. i see that you've mentioned some of the factors encouraging the spread of the disease. instead of just listing them down, maybe you could explain them in greater detail since readers who have not studied public health or epidemiology may have trouble understanding.

regarding vaccines and antibiotics - i think you should also go into greater detail about these two. mention a little bit about antibiotics resistance (you don't have to go into too great detail because there's already an excellent article on this in the guide, but it would still be prudent to outline it a bit), and how bacteria can mutate or gain resistance genes from other bacteria. and explain why the vaccine is inefficient - i find that too many members of the public are illusioned into thinking that if there is a vaccine for a given disease then they are safe!

as others have already pointed out, facts given out in point form *are* a little reader-unfriendly - it reads more like a reference book rather than an article (remember that there are many out there who will know little or nothing about microbiology, so it is important that you make the article accessible for them) - and the reader would certainly find it more comfortable to read paragraphs expanding the facts.

don't give up! i think that with a little more research and expansion, your article would make a great entry. heaven knows, what with the re-emergence of the white plague (tuberculosis) and a bunch of other previously thought to be controlled diseases (non-s. typhi salmonellosis etc), people would do well to educate themselves on re-emergence basics and not cling on with blind faith to the cures currently available (isn't that how antibiotics resistance came to be in the first place?).

(oh, and it's 'returning strain', not 'returning strand'. but are you talking about the same strain as the one that decimated europe, or a new one? also, 'posies' and not 'poses'. the 'atisho, atisho', i believe, is thought to refer to pneumonic plague, which is an even worse manifestation of y. pestis-caused disease. of course, historians are now arguing that the whole thing is a myth... see abigail salyer's 'bacterial pathogenesis')

cheers

far.

Yes..thanks. I shall do more research and edit/add/expand accordingly. Thanks for your input. (I don't know when I'll have a chance to edit it though, so am I allowed to remove it and re-enter it in peer review later, do you know?) Thanks.

I think the title of this entry is a bit misleading. It seems to suggest that the plague bacterium went away and might return, but I thought it's continued the whole time. Do you mean the plague bacterium might return, or a plague where everyone gets it might return?

Yes you can remove the entry from Peer Review and put it back later. Simply go to the Peer Review page PeerReview and look through the list of entries down the bottom until you find this. There should be a link saying "Remove" next to the information about this entry. You can always resubmit it later the normal way.

Niwt

i think what lampost means is a reemergence of the black plague, the way tuberculosis has reemerged in recent years. that is to say - it's been doing a little bit of harm here and there over the past few centuries, but that it might one day go out of control and become, God forbid, an epidemic or pandemic.

lampost - i look forward to seeing your reworked article!

Thank you, and that is what I mean when I speak about the return of the plague! ( I shall re submitted after it's fixed, thanks for your help!)

Looks like you're well on the way to getting your first edited guide entry .

Actually, when I re-submit this one it will be my second guide attempt!
My 'Airedale terrier' was just picked up by the sub-editors!