WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The first case of Ebola transmitted between patients in America has experts across the country reviewing safety protocols.

At Purdue University, Dr. David Sanders has been studying the virus since 2003 specifically how this particular Zaire strain of Ebola enters human cells.

While the virus has thus far only been shown to be transferred via bodily fluids, Sanders argues that it could become airborne.

"It can enter the lung from the airway side," Sanders said. "So this argues that Ebola is primed to have respiratory transmission.

"We need to be taking this into consideration," he continued. "What if? This is not a crazy, 'What if?' This is not a wild, 'What if?'"

Sanders said the longer the virus spread and mutates, the more likely airborne transmission will become. He also said that's why it's critical to suppress the outbreak in Africa to prevent a worldwide spread.

Sanders said it's impossible to know how many Americans could contract Ebola, or how much longer this outbreak could last. But, he said, the danger is still very low for the average American.

IU hosts Ebola Q & A forum

Indiana University (Bloomington) is planning an educational forum from noon to 1:30 p.m. Monday in WhittenbergerAuditorium in Indiana Memorial Union. If you can't make it in-person, you can watch a live video stream of the forum here.

Find more details on the forum here.

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Purdue prof says Ebola 'primed' to go airborne

Alternate title: Aufklrung

Last Updated8-20-2014

Enlightenment,French sicle des Lumires (Age of the Enlightened), German Aufklrung, a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and man were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and the celebration of reason, the power by which man understands the universe and improves his own condition. The goals of rational man were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.

A brief treatment of the Enlightenment follows. For full treatment, see Europe, history of: The Enlightenment.

The powers and uses of reason had first been explored by the philosophers of ancient Greece, who discerned in the ordered regularity of nature the workings of an intelligent mind. Rome adopted and preserved much of Greek culture, notably including the ideas of a rational natural order and natural law. Amid the turmoil of empire, however, a new concern arose for personal salvation, and the way was paved for the triumph of the Christian religion. Christian thinkers gradually found uses for their Greco-Roman heritage. The system of thought known as Scholasticism, ... (200 of 1,028 words)

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Enlightenment (European history) -- Encyclopedia Britannica