How To Evolve A Pandemic Flu Virus

Most years, we generally don't worry about the flu (unless we're paid to worry about it, or we belong to an especially susceptible population). Yet some years, like this one, threats of a pandemic flu virus make it on everyone's radar screen. So exactly what is it that makes a flu virus reach pandemic proportions? A group of researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control, Mt. Sinai and Harvard recently used engineered versions of the disastrous 1918 flu virus (don't try this at home!) to learn just what makes a flu virus go global. read more

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