The 1918 flu virus is reborn

Scientists in Atlanta have recreated the 1918 flu virus that wiped out an estimated 50m people. The researchers say that they need to find out what made it so dangerous, in order to prepare for the next influenza pandemic.

They have come to one interesting conclusion already, that the 1918 virus was an avian flu virus that jumped into humans--rather than a human virus that acquired a few genes from an avian flu. Obviously this is not good news given the outbreak of bird flu in Asia, but the researchers say that the bird flu virus has not picked up enough of the mutations it would need to jump into humans--yet.

Unhappy rebirthday, Oct 6th 2005, Scientists have recreated the 1918 flu virus in order to reveal its secrets. The Economist.

And listen:
On the 4th October 2005, scientists and government representatives briefed the world’s media about the recreation of the 1918 flu virus. They revealed that since August of this year, the virus has been contained at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, where researchers have been trying to understand what made the virus so dangerous. Listen to the briefing.

Further reading
Influenza is very much the topic of the day. To keep up with this story, there are a number of blogs keeping a close eye on bird flu epidemic in Asia, and the policy machinations with regards to flu preparedness.

Bird Flu Today--news blog. Excellent source of news from around the world on this topic.

Effect Measure--a blog about science and policy in public health, focused on bird flu and the threat of pandemic influenza. At the moment there is discussion of the President's leaked flu action plan.

Avian Flu, what we need to know--a news blog.

Bird flu Updates--a news and opinion blog.


Also this week in the Economist:
Racing rockets, Oct 6th 2005. (subscription required)
Green seafood arrives, Oct 6th 2005. (subscription required). Two British fisheries are told they are eco-friendly.

Lessons from Chernobyl

This week saw some good news. According to a group of experts, we should not expect a large number of deaths due to the accident at Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. Four thousand people is certainly a lot. But some had feared that tens of thousands might die. This number of deaths from radiation induced cancer is in fact only 3% of the 25% who will die from cancer anyway. And in many cases it will not be possible to see elevated rates of cancers in the statistics. The exception to this will be in the most highly irradiated 100,000 people, such as emergency workers. Here it is possible to detect a rise in the rates of leukemia, a cancer of the blood and the most common form of radiation induced cancer.

So many people in the region, though, have lived the past 20 years believing their lives will be curtailed by the contamination they received. In fact, most people received a relatively small dose, well within the normal range that humans receive. Yet their lives have been blighted because of the fear of something that cannot be seen or touched or tasted was far worse than reality. Chernobyl remains such an icon in history. But Bhopal was by far the worst industrial accident.

Incidentally, in the forthcoming Economist piece there is a chart showing a rise in birth defects in Belarus. In both contaminated and uncontaminated regions the rise is the same. Radiation has not made it less safe to have children. So what is causing the rise? Better reporting, say the scientists.

Humans vs animals
Meanwhile in the 10km immediately surrounding the reactor, where agriculure, industry and houses are forbidden, the largest wildlife are doing very well indeed. The area has become a wildlife sanctuary for moose, roe deer, Russian wild boar, foxes, river otters, rabbits as well as the endangered black stork. (See the report here) . As it notes, the effects of humans on wildlife are worse than the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.

Links
Chernobyl wiki
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Motorcylist Elana Filatova has explored the towns and villages around the Chernobyl reactor by bike. Her photostories from the region can be found at Kid of Speed.

Fly me to the moon

For wannabie space cadets who have been so far greatly let down by NASA's failure to sent them into orbit, the private sector is coming to save them from abject misery. In early August, an American company called Space Adventures said they would be able to organise a private trip to the Moon for two people. The catch is that they'll need $200m to do it. Oh, and you don't get to land but you can take pictures out of the window.

It sounds like a vast amount of money but $200m it isn't possible to launch a single shuttle. Space Adventures has figured out what has eluded the US Federal government for more than four decades: that space needn't be so goddam expensive. Trouble is, $100m a ticket is still a lot of cash for one person.

Holidays around the moon, August 11th 2005
Got $100m? Then an American firm can fly you to the moon

How to catch the flu

Worries continue over the spread of bird flu around the world. Two newly published research studies suggest that if an outbreak of human influenza were to occur, that it could be eliminated completely if the area was targeted with antiviral drugs. The article and editorial argued that a global stockpile of drugs was a very worthwhile idea. Even if the attempt to eliminate the outbreak were to fail, any serious attempt at it could well delay the wider spread of such an outbreak and buy governments a little time to ramp up the production of vaccines and to put flu preparedness plans into operation. Sadly, very few governments actually have these in place.

Article: Containing a pandemic, Aug 4th 2005

Editorial: Catching the flu, Aug 4th 2005
(This article requires an Economist subscription)

The trials and tribulations of the shuttle

I’m never normally short of a word or two to say on the subject of the shuttle. Before the recent launch of Discovery, I reminded Economist readers why the shuttle was an ancient and unreliable vehicle that had to go. It seemed timely to explain that the only thing really keeping the shuttle programme going is the desire to complete as much as possible of the space station—which is literally a pointless waste of space.

Winging it, Jul 14th 2005
The shuttle is soon to return America to human space flight. But it must be grounded

In August, as Discovery was finally launched to the sound of debris popping off the shuttle’s external tank. There was intense media interest in the story—far too much in my opinion. The normally brilliant New York Times leading the pack with an exhausting, and exhaustive, blow-by-blow account of the mission in which no factoid was too trivial to be unearthed and speculated on at great length.

But every outlet was to blame. To “oohs” and “aahs” from a gasping audience of millions we were regaled with the minutiae of a shuttle trip thrown into stark relief because we were all given the impression of imminent danger. It was news as theatre at its very best. What is wrong with this was that after the launch it was clear that it was the safest in years as the debris shedding that caused the crash of Columbia had been greatly reduced. The other big change was that the shuttle was bristling with monitors and was photographed and filmed intensely througout its flight. We all were given plenty of graphic images to fret about.

So it pains me greatly to admit that I too joined the throng of those contributing to the excess of column drama inches with an excessively long piece about the details of Discovery’s flight. It was written under protest. I may have thought that there was nothing of interest to write about the shuttle that week, but I was firmly reminded that this was news.

But the only reason it was news was because we wrote about it all so much. Sigh.

Onwards and downwards, Aug 4th 2005
A near miss for the shuttle and red faces at NASA

Bird flu kills in Indonesia

As avian influenza continues its seemingly relentless spread around the world the number of human cases, and fatalities, from the flu increases. This story covered the first deaths in Indonesia and growing fears of human-to-human spread.

There is some debate about human-to-human transmission, especially on the blogs that are covering this story most intently. Some would argue that this has happened and there is already ample evidence of this. They cite clusters of cases in families where the second case must have been caught from another family member and not from a common source (say contact with infected birds). Virologists say that even if the case has spread from human-to-human this does not necessarily mean that the virus has mutated into one that is easily transmitted. It may be, they say, that the first infected family member exudes so much infective material that it is picked up by other members of the family.

This article, on June 21st 2005 in The Economist is a short update of the situation in Indonesia.

Further reading on avian influenza:
World Health Organisation Avian flu FAQ
FluWiki
Wikipedia – avian influenza

Blogs about influenza
Effect Measure
Avian flu, What we need to know.
Bird flu today
Recombinomics, What's new.

Podcasting from the frontiers of science, technology and current affairs

In the course of writing and reporting about science and technology, I come across a lot of interesting people and new ideas. Particularly in my travels I'm privileged to hear some of the world’s leading thinkers and scientists talk about what they do, and what the future holds. In the past, all the recordings I’ve made have been for personal use only, to back up my note taking. But technology moves fast and podcasting offers a way of sharing audio files more widely.

In the coming months and years I, along with a close friend, will put out some of the best or most useful recordings as podcasts. The FrontierSounds project is only just starting but the first two podcasts can be downloaded directly from the links below.

Burt Rutan takes off
The designer of the first private spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, talks about the future of spaceflight. This was recorded at the 2005 meeting of the National Space Society in Washington D.C. Date: May 19 2005. Download this mp3

Autism-what the future holds
Where might research into autism take us in the future? Listen to a media briefing on the subject with six of the UK«s leading autism researchers. Recorded in London at the Science Media Centre. Speakers include: Professor Simon Baron-Cohen from the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge & Dr Tony Charman at the Institute of Child Health. Date: June 28 2005. Download this mp3