The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- What storytelling risks could Avatar have taken?
- Inside the kinda secret world of Facebook Community Council
- Weekly World News on Google Books
- Kim Peek, inspiration for Rain Man, RIP
- Photos of standpipes with anti-sitting devices
- Japanese space food
- Listen up, little ladies!
- President Obama, It's Time To Fire the TSA
- Demi Moore's lawyers threaten Boing Boing over photo analysis blog post
- Time-lapse video of the Northern Lights
- Fun with Wikipedia: Click to Jesus
- Welcome to the Boing Boing guestblog, Andrea James!
- Odd Victoria's Secret image analyzed with Photoshop forensics
- GSM security defeated by German hacker: NYT on CCC
- Do new post-pantsbomber TSA security directives kill inflight WiFi? (UPDATED)
- Robohamster
- One of 2009's hot, new species
- Ten for 2010: the 10 most-anticipated games coming in the new year
- Driving on ice in Paignton, England
- The mysteries of rabies
| What storytelling risks could Avatar have taken? Posted: 29 Dec 2009 04:47 AM PST  Illustration: =Em-j-akahana Avatar doesn't have a bad story, but its unswerving direction does make it a predictable one. Since the internet's already hashed out the cultural angles of James Cameron's splendid epic, let's take a look at the storytelling mechanics--something he approached with a caution only $400M buys. What risks could Cameron have taken to add some surprise, without spiking the straightforward narrative? Here's five ideas to get us started...1. Jake actually betrays the Na'vi Our hero's journey is smooth sailing: Jake so badly needs his destination that there's never much ambivalence about the journey. This lack of internal conflict manifests when the Na'vi tribe rejects him: his only betrayal of them is the plain fact of his original mission, which he'd had abandoned in any case. Wasn't it obvious that he might be telling others what he'd learned about the tribe? As the first "warrior" dreamwalker, no less. If Jake instead pursued an explicit and timely opportunity to betray his new friends, his 'going native' afterward would have been a powerful moral turning point rather than a faint point on a 'character arc.' 2. Give his rival some balls In Dune, off-worlder Paul Atreides is forced to kill to gain acceptance with the locals when his own kind finally forces him into the wilds. In Avatar, however, Jake only has to show up on a fancy ride. Instead of becoming a nonentity after their earlier aikido warmup, Na'vi chief-to-be Tsu-tey could have drawn a line in the moss: I represent the caution and tradition of my people, and you'll have to beat me down to change and lead us. If Jake has to defeat, even kill an ally who hates him, it tarnishes his character--but Pandora is red in tooth and claw, after all, and it is what he's fighting for. 3. The savages show how smart they are Jake masters the bow and horse. Why not let one of the Na'vi surprise everyone by getting to grips with some of that weird sky-people tech? And perhaps even do a little betrayal of his or her own. 4. Show the colonel's hidden depths You can't just let Steven Lang take a role like that and then bury him in cartoon villainy. Colonel Quaritch is evidently a spiritually blasted former soldier who went private-sector after tiring of fighting dirty wars. As Lang says in an interview, "I didn't play a villain; I played a man who is doing his job the best way that he can." But he isn't given much space for that nuance by the script. For example, he knows that his brief is to protect a blood diamond operation, not patriotic duty, and yet in his climactic battle with Jake, he asks him how he could betray his people. What he really means is, "How could you not be a soldier, son?" In the movie, Jake simply snarls. A retort would be sweeter. "Is that what they told you when you quit Venezuela?" does the the trick. The Colonel knows he's lost, after all, and getting irony thrown in his face offers him a chance to choose his own doom--without any need for the leaden pathos that often comes with such turnarounds. Consider the many suggestions that Quaritch is the only human on Pandora to feel at home there in his own body--he is much more like the Na'vi than he'd like to admit. 5. Kill Carter Burke That brings us to the disinterested corporate apparatchik in charge of the whole show. He's the real villain of the piece, who gives the natives none of the respect offered them by his soldiers and scientists, at least until his decisions' moral consequences are thrown in his face by Ripley. Wait... wrong movie. In any case, Mr. Cameron had the right idea the first time around. Kill the slimeball--or better yet, let an alien do it. |
| Inside the kinda secret world of Facebook Community Council Posted: 29 Dec 2009 02:54 AM PST I have newfound respect for online moderators who slog through potentially problematic user content all day. They get a real glimpse into the downside of humanity. Turns out Facebook Community Council is less like vigilantism and more like beta-testing a crowdsourced tagging system where you are limited to one of eight options each time. Four are self-explanatory: Spam, Acceptable, Skip, Not English. The other four are the key problem areas, and I saw plenty of all of the specified naughtiness over time: -Nudity (such as "visibility of pubic hair or genitalia, the display of sex toys, and solicitation of cybersex") Yum! Your tags are then compared to other Community Council members', and if there's enough of a match, some sort of action is apparently taken. It's strangely hypnotic, like Google Image labeler, mainly because you want to see how bad the next reported page or group is. The majority are acceptable, reported by some overly sensitive person. The main categories of reported pages are:
Whew! That was a lot of detail! If that bugs you, I recommend joining a flagged Facebook group I marked Acceptable: |
| Weekly World News on Google Books Posted: 28 Dec 2009 09:45 PM PST   Over at Orange Crate Art, Michael Leddy spotted old print issues of that bastion of great journalism, The Weekly World News, archived on Google Books! I want to believe! Weekly World News on Google Books |
| Kim Peek, inspiration for Rain Man, RIP Posted: 28 Dec 2009 10:34 PM PST Kim Peek, the savant who inspired the film Rain Man, died from a heart attack on December 19. He was 58. From the New York Times (image from Wikimedia Commons): "Kim Peek, Inspiration for 'Rain Man,' Dies at 58" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) Previously: |
| Photos of standpipes with anti-sitting devices Posted: 28 Dec 2009 09:00 PM PST  My nephew Ari Pescovitz, a metal sculptor and architecture grad student, spent the fall living in New York City for an internship. He became intrigued by the structures used to prevent people from sitting on standpipes. (Maybe that's why they're called standpipes, and not sitpipes! *rimshot*) "It amused me how hostile and creative New Yorkers were in not wanting people to slow down and rest," Ari says. So he began to photograph the standpipes as bits of urban engineering. Ari did find an exception to the anti-sitting technology though: a stand-pipe outfitted with a tiny seat. Above it was a sign: "Please be seated -- rest, dream, this is New York." The seat was sponsored by a realty firm. Previously: |
| Posted: 28 Dec 2009 04:07 PM PST  In Tokyo yesterday, I bought three packs of Japanese space food at a science museum. Pictured here are a pack of daigaku imo (candied sweet potatoes) and takoyaki (balls of batter with octopus in them). I tried takoyaki, chocolate cake, and pudding. They were all pretty decent, but the pudding — advertised as not too sweet, with a smooth, melting texture — was the only one that I could actually see myself wanting to eat again. For six bucks, though, I think I'll stick to real food as long as I'm on earth. |
| Posted: 19 Dec 2009 01:23 PM PST GirlTalk Radio is a podcast made by girls who love math and science. Hosted by 11-to-16 year olds, the program features interviews with diverse cadre of science-minded women—from stem cell researchers and computer scientists, to marine biologists and computational linguists. Even a CIA intelligence officer. Worth a listen for geek girls of all ages. (Thanks, Deborah Berebichez!) |
| President Obama, It's Time To Fire the TSA Posted: 28 Dec 2009 01:39 PM PST Our former colleague Joel Johnson, over at Gizmodo: President Obama, It's Time To Fire the TSA. Joel, I sing this kumbaya right along with you. |
| Demi Moore's lawyers threaten Boing Boing over photo analysis blog post Posted: 28 Dec 2009 12:34 PM PST  (Click for large size. Image above: two versions of a "W Magazine" cover featuring Demi Moore, one for the US edition, and one for the Korean edition. Note the apparent difference in the area around the hip.) Lawyers representing Demi Moore sent a threatening letter to Boing Boing over the holidays which demanded that we remove a post I published in November, or face legal consequences. In the referenced Boing Boing post, I published photographer Anthony Citrano's speculation that a recent W Magazine cover image of the actress may have been crudely manipulated by magazine staff to alter her hip, and appear thinner.
  And here is Boing Boing's response to Ms. Moore's attorneys (PDF), prepared by Marc Mayer of the law firm MS&K. The letter is a thing of beauty, and I encourage you to read it in full. The letter from Moore's attorney, Martin D. ("Marty") Singer, claims that we set out to slander Moore (Boing Boing did not, nor did Mr. Citrano). The letter also includes denials from people involved in the production of the W Magazine cover who insist that the image was not manipulated at all. Since receiving this letter, we have discovered that an alternate, and seemingly more anatomically correct version of the W magazine cover (with more hip-flesh) was published in W's South Korean edition. We have also been informed that Ms. Moore's attorneys have sent similar letters to other blogs that discussed the possible digital alteration of the US cover image. The story is now being covered by a number of other news organizations and blogs. A little background: Digital manipulation of photo and video content (good, bad, or disastrous) is an often-revisited subject here on Boing Boing. A quick Google search reveals that more than 3,600 items in the boingboing.net archives reference the digital alteration of images with Photoshop. A series of Boing Boing posts in September and October of this year examining how a Ralph Lauren model was slimmed to impossibly slender proportions became the subject of widespread media interest, and legal threats directed at this blog from Ralph Lauren's camp. But fashion photos aren't the only digitally altered images to have been discussed on Boing Boing.
So, back to Ms. Moore: On November 17, 2009, I published the Boing Boing post titled "Was Demi Moore Ralph-Laurenized on 'W' mag cover, with missing hip-flesh?." This post consisted entirely of a guest editorial of sorts from Anthony Citrano, a Los Angeles-based professional photographer with whom I am socially acquainted. In the post, Mr. Citrano examined the possibility that a W Magazine cover featuring Demi Moore had been digitally altered in a manner that left clues indicating it had been altered. Specifically, it looked like a portion of her hip had gone missing. Before I published the Boing Boing post, the Gawker Media blog Jezebel had already asked the same questions, and other blogs and news/tabloid websites soon followed.
Boing Boing commenters discussed the possibilities that the disputed image was or was not retouched, and the technical methods one might employ to alter, or detect alterations, in such an image. The UK newspaper Telegraph went so far as to publish an article speculating that Ms. Moore's head may have been photoshopped onto another model's body. Interest in the story gradually fizzled out on our blog, and other websites where the matter had been discussed.
Letter sent by Demi Moore's attorneys to Boing Boing (PDF).
Demi Moore cover image, "W Magazine Korea" and direct JPG link. Demi Moore cover image, W Magazine US
Anthony Citrano's responses to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys:
Oh No They Didn't responds to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys
Litigation and Trial (legal affairs blog)
Related reading: Wikipedia entry on "The Streisand Effect." |
| Time-lapse video of the Northern Lights Posted: 28 Dec 2009 12:02 PM PST  I've seen the northern lights once, at a cabin weekend in Wisconsin a couple of years ago. It's a strange thing to experience, especially at that latitude, where the lights aren't as in-your-face as this photo. For the first minute or so, you kind of wonder whether you're hallucinating. Then you realize that everybody else is standing perfectly still and silent, staring at the exact same point in the sky. This time-lapse video (you'll have to follow the link to watch) shows a far more spectacular display over the Ringebu Fjell in southern Norway, captured by photographer Bernd Proschold. The moment when the clouds clear away, and the lights burst into view is absolutely breathtaking. The World At Night: A Glimpse of the Far North (Thanks, Chris Combs!) Still image taken in Greenland by Flickr user nickrussill. Used via CC. |
| Fun with Wikipedia: Click to Jesus Posted: 28 Dec 2009 12:46 PM PST  Working between Christmas and New Year's? Still with relatives for the holidays and looking for a Christmas-themed way to pass the time till your flight home? You can play a game with coworkers or family called Click to Jesus.† 1. Go over to Wikipedia. Scoring: |
| Welcome to the Boing Boing guestblog, Andrea James! Posted: 28 Dec 2009 10:33 AM PST I am very happy to introduce Boing Boing's latest guest blogger, Andrea James. She explains.... Welcome, Andrea! |
| Odd Victoria's Secret image analyzed with Photoshop forensics Posted: 28 Dec 2009 10:32 AM PST Here's a forensic "hacker analysis" of a Victoria's Secret image which was featured on Photoshop Disasters. The analysis begins with what appear to be tell-tale signs of clumsy digital manipulation, but goes on to explain how to peel back data in such images to understand how they've been processed. I've pinged Victoria's Secret for comment, and will update if a reply arrives. |
| GSM security defeated by German hacker: NYT on CCC Posted: 28 Dec 2009 10:30 AM PST News from the Chaos Computer Congress hits the New York Times. 28-year old computer engineer Karsten Nohl today announced "that he had deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world's digital mobile phone calls, in what he called an attempt to expose weaknesses in the security of the world's wireless systems." |
| Do new post-pantsbomber TSA security directives kill inflight WiFi? (UPDATED) Posted: 28 Dec 2009 10:07 AM PST  Buried in the TSA security directive issued to airlines on Saturday, after a Nigerian man reportedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound flight, is this: 1. During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed (...)So, does this effectively kill off in-flight wireless internet services such as GoGo? What about in-flight video, like the Boing Boing Video channel on-board Virgin America, or Direct TV presentation of 24 hour news channels like CNN or MSNBC? For what it's worth, when I flew back into the US on Saturday on an international Delta flight, the WiFi service which had been promised on the flight was disabled for the entire flight. When I asked attendants whether internet access was simply not working, or had been disabled, two attendants replied that WiFi is typically only offered during the last hour of the flight, and would not be available at all because of restrictions on "last hour" acvitity. Saturday's TSA directive was initially aimed at international flights, but portions have also been implemented haphazardly on an assortment of domestic US flights, too ("keep 'em on their toes!" seems to be the prevailing explanation for the lack of consistency in implementation). This TSA Q&A for travelers doesn't answer the question. (Leaked text of directive from Boarding Area blog, via Jason Calacanis)
UPDATE, 10am PT: I reached out to sources at US-based airlines today by email, and one replied to say that as presently understood, the TSA directive has not yet been implemented on domestic flights. Some international flights connect within the US, however, and if in-flight internet is disabled on that aircraft, they typically cannot turn the service back on until the plane "overnights" somewhere.
Previously:
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| Posted: 28 Dec 2009 09:10 AM PST |
| One of 2009's hot, new species Posted: 17 Dec 2009 04:52 PM PST That's an Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, native to the coast of southern California. It's one of 94 new species the California Academy of Sciences documented in 2009. Ghostsharks (or chimaeras) are, unsurprisingly, related to sharks, but only distantly. Their evolutionary path branched away from their better-known cousins some 400 million years ago. What makes them different? Among other things, retractable sexual appendages on the foreheads of the males. California Academy of Sciences: New Species of "Ghostshark" Named By Academy Researchers |
| Ten for 2010: the 10 most-anticipated games coming in the new year Posted: 28 Dec 2009 06:24 AM PST  For all the things the indies are able to do best -- experiment wildly and allow themselves the infinite creative freedom that otherwise gives stockholders the chilled sweats -- one of their greatest assets is the element of surprise. Unlike the managed valleys and troughs of the four-year-dev-time hype-cycles, fantastic and wholly unexpected indie games pop up weekly and continually knock us flat on our backs. And so, choosing a list of the games we look forward to the most in 2010 is somewhat a fool's errand, as you honestly never know when another Canabalt is going to land from nowhere in a blinding flash. But still, there are enough higher-ambition titles -- especially for indies making their bigger-budget forays onto consoles -- that deserve more attention to make this round-up necessary, so find below ten of the games (of a much larger field about which we know even less: I'm looking at you Bit.Trip: Runner) that you'll likely be hearing much more about in the months ahead, as their gestation periods finally end. DeathSpank [Hothead, PC/PS3/Xbox 360] Hopes are high for Penny Arcade Adventures dev Hothead's upcoming DeathSpank to be the Brutal Legend of 2010, not for its mechanical or thematic similarities, but rather its pedigree. The game marks the return of original grump Ron Gilbert, creator of LucasArts classics Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, leading this loot-packing Diablo-esque action/RPG crossed with, well, genuine humor, still one of the things games desperately need more of. Fez [Polytron, Xbox Live Arcade] The excitement for Fez isn't just based on its inimitable style or perspective-shifting basics, though both obviously help: in helping to debut the game at Austin GDC I got a much longer look at the progress it's made since its Independent Games Festival debut and couldn't be more excited for the direction it's headed and the aspects yet to be revealed. Though similarities to Super Paper Mario's dimensional shifts are still being drawn elsewhere, Fez does far more with its z-axis than anyone before has dared, making progress through its world directly reliant on cutting a path through each of its four sides. Joe Danger [Hello Games, platform TBD] UK upstart Hello Games came out of nowhere in 2009 -- well, not nowhere, their Voltron-like team is formed of former Kuju and Criterion leads on games like Burnout 3, Black, Geometry Wars Galaxies and Sega Superstars Tennis -- and their indie debut game Joe Danger rose meteorically to many top most wanted lists, especially after its debut at Eurogamer's 2009 Expo (from which the video above was leaked). Forget the recent World Rally WiiWare remake: Joe Danger is the 21st century Excitebike we didn't know we wanted, with a gorgeous toy-like blue-sky aesthetic and a firm handle on stunt- and trick-jumping that rivals even Trials HD for expert handling. NightSky [Nicalis, WiiWare] Apparently lost in deep-sleep stasis somewhere in a cryo chamber hidden deep within Nintendo, NightSky should have been one of 2009's best, but -- with any luck -- will move on to top 2010 lists. As good a bedtime-story game as we'll probably ever get, NightSky comes from Nicklas 'Nifflas' Nygren -- the same Knytt creator that only weeks ago surprised debuted best-of-2009 champ Saira. With a firm focus on more physics-based platforming and an entirely original approach to What Game Music Can Be -- the lullabies here provided by Chris Schlarb (part of Sufjan Stevens' indie music collective Asthmatic Kitty) -- NightSky's set to be an instant WiiWare classic, if it could only let itself actually emerge.
Quarrel [Denki, Xbox Live Arcade] It'll be hard to tell from simply the screenshot above what to expect from Quarrel, and even if I then go on to explain that it's at heart a competitive word game, you might be forgiven for giving it the same pass as you rightly did a number of the lower-shelf family games that were released to no fanfare on Xbox Live Arcade this year. But this one -- be assured! -- is different. Not just because of the team behind it -- though Denki head Gary Penn has more than proved himself over the years with design credits on the original Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown -- but for the game's more strategic underpinnings, where the actual competitive word battles are simply its substitute for combat in a larger land-grab conquest (which you see above: think DiceWars). Fast-paced, instantly approachable, and considerably and considerately iterated on for the better part of a year, Quarrel is already set to be a game worth yelling about.
Diamond Trust [Jason Rohrer, DS] It was the least likely design doc surprise of 2009, as Jason Rohrer -- solo dev behind reigning art-game-champ Passage and the Esquire-curated (?!) game Between -- announced he was partnering with casual publisher Majesco to create a DS game based on "diamond trading in Angola on the eve of the passage of the Kimberly Process." We've only seen the recently released scraps of screenshots (well, and a chick-pea and penny based prototype), but the blood diamond trade is nothing if not a, well, diamond mine of strategic, socio-political, and potential emotional depth, and there are few people other than Rohrer that I'd trust to smartly interpret that in interactive form.
Scott Pilgrim [Ubisoft, platform TBD] Here's the wildcard of the bunch: we don't really know what Ubisoft's got up its sleeve for the game based on Canadian comic artist Bryan Lee O'Malley's cult hit comic book series, but what we do know is that there is nothing in Scott Pilgrim's already deeply videogame-influenced world that shouldn't perfectly translate into one itself. Deep-Throat rumblings about some of the cherry-picked team behind the game have bolstered some extra high hopes that this won't just be a quick cash-in tie-in with Edgar Wright's film adaptation (itself my most anticipated movie of 2010), but with nothing publicly said about the game other than their intention to create it and continual consultation with O'Malley himself, there's nothing much to do in the meantime but scrunch your eyes up tight and hope. Spelunky [Mossmouth, Xbox Live Arcade] You say: "God, Spelunky again?" I say: absolutely. Even though we've already spent all of 2009 plumbing its procedurally generated depths -- over, and over, and over, and over -- on PC, the forthcoming console port of Derek Yu's retro-platformer is worth watching for all the ways in which it won't be a port. Yu's already recently explained that at least graphically, the Xbox 360 version will be a much different beast, relying on a more painterly approach akin to his work on Aquaria, and in general seems to be hinting that it holds other experimental surprises that will separate it from the freeware version it was branched from. To say nothing of the simple fact that now it's Spelunky in our living rooms! Over, and over, and over, and over. Super Meat Boy [Team Meat, WiiWare] There's nothing necessarily experimental about Team Meat's super-charged console port of their free Flash original Meat Boy: it's just old-school white-knuckle challenge-based platforming done gloriously right. The Meat boys are determined not to make any concessions to the white-livered weaker players among us: having run through its first world, I can assure you that there's essentially no such thing as a safe landing in any of Meat Boy's levels until you've reached the end. It'll be the visceral thrill that separates -- I don't know, the prime cuts from the grist -- and also, unrelatedly, will likely be the most indie-all-star jam packed game of the year, with cameo appearances already assured from Braid star Tim, Bit.Trip protagonist Commander Video, and The Behemoth's original Alien Hominid. Zangeki no Reginleiv [Sandlot, Wii] This list was almost entirely conceived to give proper due to this game, which might be completely unfair as it still hasn't been confirmed for a Western release. On the surface it might appear to be any other word-jumble from the subset of Japanese gaming that only two small handfuls of obsessive sub-culture fans in the West can appreciate, but again, let me assure you this is different. I know this, having seen only as much as the trailer above, because I know developer Sandlot: or rather, I know they are the team behind the jaw-droppingly brilliant and desperately under-appreciated Earth Defense Force games (only one of which has made it to the States as the Xbox 360's Earth Defense Force 2017 -- you can find it for about $10 now and you need to purchase it immediately. Europe was luckier to have received its even more necessary PlayStation 2 prequels). Originally devised as cheap budget thrills, the EDF series is a fantastically simple setup: choose two guns, shoot at about thirty billion cut-and-paste stock-3D-model giant ants and spiders that all swarm at you at once. But it works, better than you'd ever dream, the true gamer's game. And then comes Reginleiv, which takes that same formula and substitutes in Norse mythology for all the future-alien-invasion b-movie tropes, hands you swords to Wii-mote slash on top of the firearm stock (here represent, of course, by "magic"), but leaves in all of the overwhelming and beelining enemy forces and, best, the towering demigods (which you can get a better taste of via this too-short earlier video teaser). Nintendo obviously has higher hopes for this one than all of the budget publishers before have had for their previous works -- they're publishing it themselves in Japan -- and with more ambitious co-op play, this will be the year's biggest tragedy if we don't see it make its way West-ward. |
| Driving on ice in Paignton, England Posted: 28 Dec 2009 06:52 AM PST Filmed by neighbors who asked them not to attempt driving out on their iced-over suburban street, this pair somehow turn their predicament from "deductible" to "Darwin Award" near-miss in record time. [via Arbroath] Update: now with Bolero. |
| Posted: 23 Dec 2009 01:47 PM PST  One day, towards the end of summer, I walked into my living room and found my cats playing "Secret CIA Prison" with a bat. He was alive, but just barely. He lay on my floor twitching, his wings torn to Swiss cheese. The cats looked up at me as if to say, "We do good work, yes?" I locked them in the bedroom and called the vet. Fortunately, the cats were all up on their shots. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell the vet how the bat had gotten into the house, nor how long he'd been there. "You should maybe call your doctor," she said. On average, 55,000 people worldwide die from rabies every year, but only two or three of those cases happen in the United States, thanks to widespread vaccination of domestic animals and availability of post-bite treatment for humans. Today, when Americans die of rabies, it's usually because they didn't realize they'd been bitten until it was too late—which is to say, when they first noticed symptoms. See, we know how to prevent rabies, but we have absolutely no idea how to cure it. In fact, we don't even really know how it kills people. Despite (and, perhaps, because of) its status as one of the first viruses to be tamed by a vaccine, rabies remains a little-understood disease. It's a mystery that makes doctors understandably nervous. Just a week before I found my bat, some friends of mine in St. Paul had woken up to find a bat in their bedroom. Being asleep is one of those times when tiny bat teeth could bite you without you being aware of it. My friends had to get post-exposure prophylaxis, a treatment designed to neutralize any rabies virus in your system before it has a chance to reach your brain and develop into a full-blown infection.
That means five doses of vaccine, over the course of 28 days, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If there's also an obvious bite, doctors will clean the wound and apply rabies antibody serum to the site. The antibodies are basically the key part of a lock-and-key system that tells your immune system to destroy anything the key fits. The idea is that antibodies will help destroy most of the virus at the site of entry, while the vaccine will train your body to knock out any strays it finds elsewhere. The CDC also recommends a shot of antibodies, separate from the vaccine, even if there is no obvious bite. This one-two punch is almost 100% effective, provided you get it in time. How fast is "in time"? Nobody really knows. The CDC says that, as long as a bite victim isn't yet symptomatic, they should get the prophylaxis. Dr. Fu said that the window of opportunity can vary in length, depending on how close the bite is to the person's central nervous system. Without post-exposure prophylaxis, rabies is fatal. By the time symptoms--fever, confusion, partial paralysis, difficulty swallowing--appear, it's too late. There's not much doctors can do after that, because they aren't even sure what the virus is doing to you.
Given the lack of information and the risk of death, it's not surprising that even a situation like mine, where a bite was extremely unlikely, ended with a referral to a nearby hospital for post-exposure prophylaxis. But, after several conversations between the emergency room doctor and the Minnesota state rabies hotline, I ended up not getting it. Turns out, sneak-attack bites don't really happen to wide-awake, sober, cognitively normal adults in the middle of the day. The chance that I or my husband were actually bitten by the bat before the cats set upon it was so small that, on the advice of medical professionals, we decided that it wasn't worth the pain, potential side-effects, or cost of treatment. That's right. I am my own death panel. But on the off-chance that I do come down with symptoms—there've been cases of rabies incubating for up to a year—is there really no hope? Well, sort of. Maybe. Ish. Researchers have been experimenting with a treatment that they think could save the lives of people with full-blown rabies. Called the Milwaukee Protocol, it involves putting the patient into a coma and also giving them antiviral medication. The idea is that the human immune system—with some help from antivirals—can fight off a rabies infection, while the coma limits damage to the brain that seems to be a common cause of rabies death. In 2004, a teenage girl who received this treatment became the first person—ever—to survive symptomatic rabies without having received the vaccine either before being bitten, or before symptoms appeared. The problem: We still don't know whether the Milwaukee Protocol actually works. It's been tried—and failed—at least 13 times since 2004, according to a 2009 paper published in the journal Current Infectious Disease Reports. There are two reported successes, but in one of those the patient received the vaccine before her she became symptomatic. The other success is very recent and there aren't many details available yet. So why did the first girl survive? Again, nobody knows. It's possible that either she had a particularly hardcore immune system, or the variant of the virus she contracted was particularly weak, or both. When she was diagnosed, she had rabies antibodies in her cerebral spinal fluid—something that would indicate the presence of rabies in her brain—but doctors weren't able to isolate any actual virus—suggesting that her body was already on its way to winning the fight before the Milwaukee Protocol was used. Unfortunately, any effort to really conquer rabies may be hampered by the fact that the vaccine works so well, Dr. Fu said.
New England Journal of Medicine: Survival After Treatment of Rabies With Induction of Coma Image courtesy Flickr user WilsonB, via CC |
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