#adibreakingit

No problem at all! Feel free to keep those questions coming -- hopefully it helps everyone and we all benefit from this. I certainly benefit from learning. =D

You brought up a very good point, and I think it's important for the community to know: Ebola has been overblown by the media.

Don't get me wrong, it is a serious disease and there are people suffering and dying. But let's go into it.

What is ebola?

Ebola is a virus that came from bats, that we have seen since 1976. The particular strand that has been spreading right now seems to be the most deadly, which has a case-fatality rate of 83%.

What are its symptoms?

Signs and symptoms typically start between two days and three weeks after contracting the virus as a fever, sore throat, muscle pain, and headaches. Then, vomiting, diarrhea and rash usually follow, along with decreased function of the liver and kidneys. At this time some people begin to bleed both internally and externally. The disease has a high risk of death, killing between 25 percent and 90 percent of those infected with the virus, averaging out at 50 percent. This is often due to low blood pressure from fluid loss, and typically follows six to sixteen days after symptoms appear.

(Source: Ebola virus disease, WIkipedia)

Here's the checklist that healthcare professionals are advised to use in diagnosis of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) by the CDC: Checklist for Patients Being Evaluated for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the United States.

If you have any or most of these and you haven't been with the contact of bodily fluids of anyone infected or been in an endangered zone, you likely just have the flu.

How does it spread?

[...] the virus can be spread to others through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes in, for example, the eyes, nose, or mouth) with

blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola

objects (like needles and syringes) that have been contaminated with the virus

infected fruit bats or primates (apes and monkeys)

Ebola is not spread through the air, by water, or in general, by food. However, in Africa, Ebola may be spread as a result of handling bushmeat (wild animals hunted for food) and contact with infected bats. There is no evidence that mosquitoes or other insects can transmit Ebola virus. 

Ebola Virus Disease - Transmission, CDC

Why is it such a big deal?

The current epidemic in West Africa has claimed a lot of lives, and the CDC foresees that it will be claiming a lot more very soon. Aside from this recent outbreak, Ebola is not more special, not more contagious, not more deadly and not more concerning that other diseases in any way.

If you live in a developed country where access to healthcare is rather simple, you should not worry that much about those infected or an epidemic, because with proper treatment, it is very likely for people to recover fully.

I highly recommend the sources from the CDC and Healthcare Triage since they are really clear and specific while not being too technical to understand.

Sources:

Ebola Virus, Wikipedia

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), CDC

Ebola Virus Disease, Wikipedia

[Video] What you need to know about Ebola, SciShow

[Video] Shrooms and smoking, adult drug abuse and ebola update, Healthcare Triage News

[Video] Ebola in America and Placebos work!, Healthcare Triage News

[Video] Ebola and Salt, Healthcare Triage News

Hi! The answer is basically “no, you need more info than that”, but there are a few reasons why doing so may become impractical too.

First of all, for those that are not on the subject, crystals are the regular disposition that some compounds will take under certain conditions. You may know of common examples like diamond or snowflakes.

However, how does the crystal form is also dependent on multiple conditions, like temperature, pressure and other substances involved. In a simple example, both graphite and diamond are different crystallization forms of Carbon and Carbon alone. This characteristic is called polymorphism, or allotropy (for single elements only), although the first term is preferred.

Now, I originally thought that your question was if you could determine what is exactly the chemical compound based only on the crystalline structure. Most literature refers to determining what the crystalline structures can be based on the chemical compound, but not the way around. Since it depends on multiple factors, the simulations are still hard to do and whether it could be done all the time is still an open question.

But on determining the compound based on the crystalline structure, the answer is “no” as well. I found the Crystallography Open Database, I took all of 2014 publications, sorted parameters from small to large and found if there were any known crystals with the exact same parameters but different chemical compositions. You can see the results using this link.

Furthermore, such analysis may not even be necessary because in order to determine the lattice parameters, crystallography has a wide range of methods that can already point out the chemical compounds of the crystal structure.

For more information be sure to check the source links,  I found lots of useful and interesting stuff. By the way, 2014 is the International Year of Crystallography. =D

Sources:

International Tables for Crystallography, Volume A, UNAM Physics Labs

International Tables for Crystallography, Volume C, Google Books

Crystallography, Wikipedia

Polymorphism (materials science), the quotation on citing W. C. McCrone, indicates that the mapping between chemical compounds and crystal structures are not fully known yet.

Allotropy, Wikipedia

Crystallographic database, Wikipedia, the section on crystal phases search indicates that knowing the crystallographic parameters is not enough to find the chemical composition

Crystallography Open Database

adibreakingit, I received your question on crystals and chemical compounds, I'm currently investigating as to provide an answer. Seems like it's not a straightforward answer so there's some interesting info to dig up there!

thepoeticsofsex, I just got your question on dust models. I'll get to it soon but it'll take some more time for me to investigate, I hope you're fine with that.