Those summer colds are the worst.

Baby can you dig your man?

Face I made when I saw the headline

Weaver95: ok, I want to make it a law that ANYONE involved in bio-research has to watch 'the andromeda strain' and/or 'The Omega man' before being given lab access and funding.

c'mon people! WTF!?

People should just have a dose of regular ol' history. Smallpox and the inadvertent virgin field epidemic of the Americas.

Simply horrifying and poorly discussed.

Darth_Lukecash: Read an article a few weeks back about how if the Indians were at full power, the Europeans wouldn't have been able to settle in America. The Vikings, who were the most feared fighting group, got their asses handed to them.

Don't forget the black plague. A third of Europe got wiped out. Indians suffered as much, if not more. People have a tendency to forget that plagues hit every human society and civilization...and decimated them.

its starting to trickle out.

They are GOING to wipe out Madagascar if it farking kills them.

LordJiro: They are GOING to wipe out Madagascar if it farking kills them.

Link (NSFW audio)

The flu airborne? I think nature took care of that already.

Weaver95: ok, I want to make it a law that ANYONE involved in bio-research has to watch 'the andromeda strain' and/or 'The Omega man' before being given lab access and funding.

c'mon people! WTF!?

Andromeda Strain isn't relevant. I don't know The Omega Man.

Anyway, this is only reproducing what nature will do in time anyway. They're testing how bad the changes would be--a good thing to know as any hope of stopping a pandemic involves recognizing it quickly.

Makh: But there's no sense crying over every mistake.

And I'd only just gotten that song out of my head. Damnit. :P

Loren: Weaver95: ok, I want to make it a law that ANYONE involved in bio-research has to watch 'the andromeda strain' and/or 'The Omega man' before being given lab access and funding.

c'mon people! WTF!?

Andromeda Strain isn't relevant. I don't know The Omega Man.

Anyway, this is only reproducing what nature will do in time anyway. They're testing how bad the changes would be--a good thing to know as any hope of stopping a pandemic involves recognizing it quickly.

Indeed. If you have already identified an airborne version, you can have a vaccination ready you knuckle-dragging, knee-jerk reacting lay-people.

This is good science.

A nice window into how the GROSSLY uniformed can become outraged based on a single article without researching the information on their own and then spew vitriol, inciting other uninformed people.

Not unlike our "leaders" outraged about drone spying on farmers.

/continue

I say this as a Christian...

Science,

Just because you can try to out-pace the death toll of current religious wars, doesn't mean you should.

/eh fark it
//you did with the atom bomb

The scary thing about bird flu is how nonchalant politicians and the general public are about it. There will be a bad pandemic in the future. And we are terribly unprepared.

*facepalm*

Dear Science,

You are doing it wrong.

When virus related science is outlawed, only outlaws will have supervirus knowledge.

UNAUTHORIZED FINGER: However, I dug "The Omega Man". C'mon, it's Charlton Heston!

Charlton Heston and his Cold Dead Hand

/band name

Do we lament the invention of the nuclear bomb because the scientists on the project thought it could set the atmosphere on fire?

/if they only thought so for a few hours

Summoner101: Do we lament the invention of the nuclear bomb because the scientists on the project thought it could set the atmosphere on fire?

I doubt any of the scientists who were actually in on the physics of the bomb thought that. Feynman didn't.

Gonad the Ballbarian: Indeed. If you have already identified an airborne version, you can have a vaccination ready you knuckle-dragging, knee-jerk reacting lay-people.

If you produce a strain that is airborne in the lab then you could produce lab produced airborne strain antibodies. These won't be the same as wild airborne strain antibodies. Remember, the protein coat of a virus is highly variable and antibodies are rather specific. If antibodies weren't so specific we'd be allergic to a lot more crap.

Darth_Lukecash: Party Boy: Weaver95: ok, I want to make it a law that ANYONE involved in bio-research has to watch 'the andromeda strain' and/or 'The Omega man' before being given lab access and funding.

c'mon people! WTF!?

People should just have a dose of regular ol' history. Smallpox and the inadvertent virgin field epidemic of the Americas.

Simply horrifying and poorly discussed.
.
Read an article a few weeks back about how if the Indians were at full power, the Europeans wouldn't have been able to settle in America. The Vikings, who were the most feared fighting group, got their asses handed to them.

Don't forget the black plague. A third of Europe got wiped out. Indians suffered as much, if not more. People have a tendency to forget that plagues hit every human society and civilization...and decimated them.

Because the Europeans that came tended to give the natives smallpox AND the plague and had wiped out the better part of N. and S. America within 100 years of 1500 AD.

How is this just a headline now? The work was done over a year ago, and the debate about how/if it should be published openly has been raging since at least january of this year. Nature's news archive gives a pretty good sense of how large the discussion has been

Boy, there is some reactionary hand-wringing here...

People, H5N1 (aka Bird Flu) will develop into a pandemic strain. We don't know when that will occur nor how virulent it will be, and we cannot predict the morbidity and mortality of the not-yet-existent strain. But it will occur--with a high degree of confidence--because it's the evolutionary path of the influenza viruses.

What we do know already: the recent and present strains of H5N1 have very low transmission efficiency, animal-human or human-human, so the cases seen are either those working directly with infected fowl or only one degree away from that. Those that do come down with H5N1 have a very serious problem, though: it's quite deadly. If a future pandemic strain keeps its high virulence but develops a high transmission rate, it really could be the Spanish Flu all over again...

These scientists have worked to determine what kind of mutations would be needed to make the present version into the high-transmission version. This is not to provide a blueprint for terrorists (a stupid idea for terrorists), but to facilitate the continued monitoring of H5N1 infections to determine whether the wild H5N1 quasispecies populations are moving towards possible pandemic strains. This is a good thing. Early detection of known mutations in the wild could facilitate more efficient preparation and vaccine development.

If you want to know more, read this.

Marine1: I say this as a Christian...

Science,

Just because you can try to out-pace the death toll of current religious wars, doesn't mean you should.

/eh fark it
//you did with the atom bomb

Apparently you misunderstand the importance of identifying these strains before they start killing people.

I'll take the miniscule calculated risks of these viruses escaping a controlled environment over an approach based around prayer, thanks.

Everyone freaking out take a step back.

1) The scientists didn't engineer this virus. Their methods can be summed up as simply boosting the evolutionary rate of the virus in a contained laboratory environment.
2) H5N1 outbreaks follow one of two courses in people - High mortality but low transmission, or high transmission with a rapid fall of of mortality.

The thing is, flu is an incredibly studied bug and while the protein coat may change, we know the mutations (most of them) that need to take place in order for the nightmare scenario of high transmission and high mortality to occur. What we don't know is just how far off some of these were.

This study not only further solidified the genetic data in identifying specific mutations (sometimes as small as a single base) which can result in the special death combo. It also illustrated the "genetic distance," (so-to-speak) between circulating strains and this strain.

If you think of this situation like a map it makes more sense. Previously, we knew where we were (current strains) and we knew that there was a destination we could get to that would be very bad (High mortality and transmission). What we didn't know was precisely where that bad destination was, how far it was, or the path to get there. The data this provides can:
1) Make us better aware of just how close we are to danger
2) Let us better evaluate what circulating strains are truly dangerous and whether the regions in which they are circulating merit greater surveillance
3) Give us a chance to attempt to create a vaccine BEFORE the nastiness hits. Remember, this wasn't engineered. Its not IF this happens in ducks/birds/geese, its when. Anything that can give us a jump on an pandemic is a good thing. Vaccine development, creation, and production takes month's without any headaches or unforeseen circumstances.

/mad scientist

TabASlotB: Smart stuff

Wicked Chinchilla: More smart stuff

Popped in to say these things. Looks like it's been covered. I'll just give a hearty "THIS" and "THIS ALSO" for you both.

Seriously, people, scientists are not stupid. Just because you don't understand why we do something doesn't mean we don't either.

enik: Marine1: I say this as a Christian...

Science,

Just because you can try to out-pace the death toll of current religious wars, doesn't mean you should.

/eh fark it
//you did with the atom bomb

Apparently you misunderstand the importance of identifying these strains before they start killing people.

I'll take the miniscule calculated risks of these viruses escaping a controlled environment over an approach based around prayer, thanks.

Wasn't really the point, but okay.

On the bright side, no more Social Security, Medicare or government worker pensions crisis!

Also, with 90% fewer buyers, real estate will be super cheap.

wildcardjack: Summoner101: Do we lament the invention of the nuclear bomb because the scientists on the project thought it could set the atmosphere on fire?

I doubt any of the scientists who were actually in on the physics of the bomb thought that. Feynman didn't.

Gonad the Ballbarian: Indeed. If you have already identified an airborne version, you can have a vaccination ready you knuckle-dragging, knee-jerk reacting lay-people.

If you produce a strain that is airborne in the lab then you could produce lab produced airborne strain antibodies. These won't be the same as wild airborne strain antibodies. Remember, the protein coat of a virus is highly variable and antibodies are rather specific. If antibodies weren't so specific we'd be allergic to a lot more crap.

Obviously. But their strain is a " minimum" mutation involving 3 diverse mutations. Being ready for this more likely mutation is good science. You are thinking of HIV where the protein coat is HIGHLY variable. With the flu, each strain is highly specific and stable, hence the utility of vaccinations.