XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 07 Apr 2016, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban, in article   
   , Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:   
      
   >Thomas Prufer  wrote:   
      
   >> Moe Trin  wrote:   
      
   >>> I'm sure the paper was peer-reviewed - but there are several problems.   
      
   >> Yup... may have been reviewed by doctor-peers, not   
   >> airplane-knowledgeable peers?   
      
   And see my reply to Thomas on this line   
      
   >The question the paper is addressing is whether it is physically   
   >possible for the cholera organism to survive the conditions it would   
   >experience when dropped from an aircraft at high altitude.   
      
   In the abstract - 5th sentence -   
      
     "It should be noted that in this study, no account was taken of the   
     effect of ultra-violet light on the viability, and it is known that at   
     high altitudes the ultra-violet light component of solar radiation is   
     much higher than at ground level."   
      
   Not totally unreasonable, as all but one of the Calcutta-London flights   
   in November 1970 were night-time departures arriving in Western Europe   
   late in the morning.  This was also the case for the single "direct"   
   flight to Paris weekly, the seven direct flights to Frankfort weekly, the   
   two weekly direct flights to Amsterdam, the ten weekly direct flights to   
   Rome, and so on (none of which were "non-stop").  HOWEVER   
      
   Looking at "Figure 1" (the map of incidence of cholera 1970-75) I would   
   definitely state "not proven" to the so-stated "reasonable correspondence"   
   argument of the paper.  Possible?  No doubt - but actually occurring?   
   No.   Were this the case, how do they explain the relative lack of cases   
   in Pakistan (15 direct flights weekly from Calcutta), Iran, Iraq, Jordan,   
   Greece (all with a considerable number of weekly overflights), Germany   
   Switzerland or (especially) Thailand (which had twenty flights directly   
   from Calcutta plus at least ten additional overflights weekly), verses   
   the substantial rates in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Israel (but not   
   Lebanon or Egypt?), Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.  No, this paper   
   definitely pegged the "uh-huh" meter here.   
      
           Old guy   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)