I don't usually comment on health issues (as it doesn't fall into the "describing geeky things that happened last night" camp), nor do I generally link from Boing Boing (as it would be unlikely for most people to see a BB article here first, statistically speaking).
But this - this I found interesting:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that, people in the U.S. infected with the virus have either traveled to Mexico recently or have been exposed to someone returning from the country. The CDC originally thought the virus was a straightforward swine flu virus. However after closer analysis determined it is a new virus containing a mixture of swine, human and avian viruses.
-- Swine Influenza Update from a Nurse: Virus, Panic, Precautions, and End of the World Websites.Which is pretty creepy considering this thing's special trick seems to be hopping from species to species. I don't know how likely it is for a bug to go from say, swine to human and then human to human and then, uh, human to turtle - but it sure sounds like a great House episode if there ever was one.
Course, others don't agree:
Meanwhile, the UNRELIABLE sources are in full bloom. Rightwing and survivalist commentary ranges from decrying the swine flu as a bio-terror attack (Terror Pigs?) to celebrating this as the beginning of the Rapture.
Apocalypse swine.
This is the way the world ends, people. Not with a bang.
But a snort.
Update: Apparently the "cross-gene" theory is being disputed, and the swine flu may be all swine after all.
Snort.
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