It really happened. In Switzerland, no less. Spiegel Online explains how a Swine Flu Container Explodes on Train:

According to the police, a lab technician with the Swiss National Center for Influenza in Geneva had travelled to Zurich to collect eight ampoules, five of which were filled with the H1N1 swine flu virus. The samples were to be used to develop a test for swine flu infections.

The containers were hermetically sealed and cooled with dry ice. However, it seems the dry ice was not packed correctly and it melted during the journey. The gas coming from the containers then built up too much pressure and the ampoules exploded, as the train was pulling into a station.

It was not the mutated form of the virus, fortunately. I wonder how often ampoules explode. An American Scientific Glassblowers Society Safety and Hazards Committee report suggests these explosions are a known risk.

Throughout our careers as scientific glassblowers, we have witnessed several incidents involving cryogens that have caused injury to personnel. By sharing these experiences, it is our hope that we will all have a greater understanding and respect for cryogenic liquids.

The obvious solution in this case would be a pressure alarm requirement for containers, especially those with dry ice that are known to have explosive risks.

Countries around the world are taking very different positions on Google’s photographic documentation project known as Street View. The Deutsche Welle points out Greece has banned the service altogether, while Germany and Japan have requested privacy measures:

Street View us not yet available for Germany. Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer recently told the magazine Focus that “public opposition to Google Street View in Germany, though not hysterical, had been tougher than in any country.”

Fleischer said however, that specific privacy tools will be developed for the German launch, which Google is hoping will happen later this year. The option to have specific images removed would also apply for locations in Germany.

Google has faced complaints, similar to those in Greece, in Japan. They led to the company agreeing to re-shoot all images in Japan for Street View.

Google Japan announced in a statement Wednesday that it would lower cameras, installed on a car roof, after complaints that images were captured over fences and thus violated privacy.

Creating an archive of views over fences does seem invasive, but it also begs the question of whether this is actually illegal or what prevents another service from doing the same?

The other end of the spectrum can be found in Poland, according to a Google employee quoted in the Krakow Post:

Marta Jó?wiak, from Google Polska, told Gazeta Wyborcza that Google has always introduced Street View with capital cities, but, “we’re happy that in the case of Poland, there were plans from the start to expand to Krakow, which is an extremely attractive spot on the world tourism map.”

This issue was driven home for me recently (pun not intended) when I was given a quick tour of a small town that revealed numerous privacy issues. The Street View car slowly followed a friend home as she rode her bicycle. It appeared as though the camera was pacing her and you could see reactions from people in the neighborhood as she and the Google car passed them. Along the same lines, we could see cars that were not in their driveway. A quick search around town found them parked at the beach. In other words, as my friend explained, “Google showed that his truck was not at home so we checked the beach photos and saw him talking to some girl”.