Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học quốc tế cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: Tsunami. | Comment Tsunami Gregory A Petsko Address Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center Brandeis University Waltham MA 02454-9110 USA. E-mail petsko@ Published 31 January 2005 Genome Biology 2004 6 104 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http 2005 6 2 104 2005 BioMed Central Ltd It began at the bottom of the ocean off the west coast of Indonesia. From there it spread outward silently invisible under the surface of the water. When it came ashore in forty countries some as far as 4 000 miles from where it started it killed upwards of 150 000 people. There have been deadlier catastrophes - the earthquake in China in the mid-1970s killed a quarter of a million in that country and the cyclone that devastated Bangladesh in the decade before that is thought to have caused half a million deaths - but none that involved so many different nations scattered across so much of the earth s surface. The tsunami spawned by the magnitude earthquake of 26 December 2004 was perhaps the first truly global natural disaster in modern history a third of the world s countries were directly affected. The worldwide scope of the destruction reminds us of something that genomics is also starting to make clear that we are all truly one people that national and racial differences are artificial and insignificant compared to the common bond of our humanity. Despite all our technological prowess and environmental hubris we also have yet another grim reminder that Nature not Man is still boss of this planet. The word tsunami comes from the Japanese words for harbor tsu and wave nami . It refers to a series of giant undersea waves that travel at high velocity for very long distances and that crest when they hit a shoreline in the form of a devastating surge sometimes as much as 30 meters high. Tsunamis are often called tidal waves but that s a misnomer the phenomenon has nothing to do with the tides. It has its .
