Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Zika: why Brazil, why now

(HealthDay)—Brazil, by a wide margin, has been the country hit hardest by the ongoing Zika virus epidemic and its potential for birth defects.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Measles surges in UK years after flawed research (Update)

More than a decade ago, British parents refused to give measles shots to at least a million children because of now discredited research that linked the vaccine to autism. Now, health officials are scrambling to catch up ...

Neuroscience

Transneuronal spread model fits neurodegenerative disease

(HealthDay) -- Neurodegenerative diseases may be characterized by specific regions of the brain that are critical network epicenters, with disease-related vulnerability associated with shorter paths to the epicenter and greater ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

H1N1 flu deaths hit 123 in Mexico, officials say

Mexico is worried about a spike in the number of H1N1 flu cases and deaths, in the country that was the epicenter of the 2009 outbreak of the strain.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Dallas-fort worth brace for West Nile spraying

(HealthDay) -- The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area -- the epicenter of the nation's worst outbreak of West Nile virus this year -- could see aerial spraying of insecticides as early as Thursday night to help control the ...

HIV & AIDS

UNAIDS report shows critical gaps in world response

Deaths from HIV/AIDS are rising in parts of Asia and central Europe and the global response must accelerate, experts said Wednesday after the release of a major report on the world AIDS epidemic.

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Epicenter

The epicenter or epicentre (pronounced /ˈɛpɪsɛntər/) is the point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or underground explosion originates. The word derives from the New Latin noun epicentrum, the latinisation of the ancient Greek adjective ἐπίκεντρος (epikentros), "occupying a cardinal point, situated on a centre", from ἐπί (epi) "on, upon, at" and κέντρον (kentron) "centre".

In the case of earthquakes, the epicenter is directly above the point where the fault begins to rupture, and in most cases, it is the area of greatest damage. However, in larger events, the length of the fault rupture is much longer, and damage can be spread across the rupture zone. For example, in the magnitude 7.9, 2002 Denali earthquake in Alaska, the epicenter was at the western end of the rupture, but the greatest damage occurred about 330 km away at the eastern end of the rupture zone.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA