Break Out The Face Masks: Swine Flu Has Mutated

With all the hysteria concerning H1N1 aka swine flu, prepare for people to start barricading themselves in their houses:

Chine has detected 8 cases if swine flu mutation, according to a health official.

Luckily, the strain found by China has an "isolated spread in the mainland" and is still susceptible to drugs and preventable by vaccine. Other information about the mutated strain--cases or deaths associated, where it was found, etc. has not been released.

The World Heath Organization (WHO) announced last week they were looking into a variant of the flu that may have caused two deaths and a severe case in Norway. This mutation isn't new--it has been found all over the world and in both mild and severe cases. However, Norway's Institute of Public Health announced this mutation may cause more severe disease by effectively infecting the deeper tissues in the airway.

The evolution and therefore mutation of viruses is not unusual. Viruses replicate incredibly fast and can infect many people easily. They must also be continuously evolving to stay ahead of the host cells. In particular RNA viruses have a high rate of mutation because they lack a way to correct any mutations. DNA replication has an enzyme that can go back, find and correct mutations that might have occured. To give you an sense of mutation rates, here are some stats according to Wikipedia (so take it with a grain of salt?):

-Eukaryotes (ex: humans, plants, animals) -.0010 to .00001 per base per generation

-Bacteria- .00000001 per base per generation

-DNA viruses (ex herpes virus, smallpox virus, human papillomavirus-HPV)- .000001 to .00000001 per base per generation

-RNA viruses (hepatitis, HIV, influenza, Norwalk virus)-.001 to .00001 per base per generation

Ew, Antarctica is Dirty: Antarctic Lakes Full of Viruses

Alcami and his colleagues analyzed DNA from viruses found in water samples collected fromAntarctica's Lake Limnopolar, a surface lake on Livingston Island. They found nearly 10,000 species, including some small DNA viruses that had never before been identified. In total, the viruses were from 12 different families, some of which may be completely new to science, the researchers suggest.

The results reveal this Antarctic lake supports a virus community that's more diverse than most aquatic environments studied in the world so far — a surprising find considering that the polar region is generally thought to have low biological diversity due to the extreme environmental conditions. The scientists speculate the newly discovered viruses may have adapted specifically to thrive in such harsh conditions.

The team also found the community of viruses changed dramatically depending on the season. When the lake was ice-covered in the spring, the liquid water under the ice was inhabited by mostly small viruses, but in the summer months when the ice melted, the lake was home to mostly larger viruses.

"It looks like a completely different lake in summer," Alcami said. The scientists think the shift might be due to an increase in algae in the summertime, which the larger viruses infect.

The researchers hope to figure out whether any of the viruses are unique to Antarctica. If so, that would shed light on whether microbial life evolved independently in Antarctica, which has been isolated for millions of years, or they were introduced there more recently.

When Science Meets Stupid #1: Swine Flu Parties

According to an article by BBC news, people are hosting swine flu parties or intentionally coming into contact with people who have H1N1.

The reasoning is, like children chicken pox parties, they will infer resistance to the flu while having to suffer through the "mild" form, before it becomes stronger in the winter.

If you are willing to go lick someone with swine flu, you are an idiot for the following reasons:

1. If you've had the flu and you've had the chicken pox, you know the flu is much worse. Tired, coughing, sore throat, nausea, congestion outweighs itchy and sitting in a bath tub of oatmeal.
2. Although both chicken pox and swine flu are highly contagious, the risk of swine flu mutation is much higher and much lesser people have immunity. In other words, H1N1 spreads incredibly fast. Our best line of defense right now is currently containment. Putting out a Craigslist ad of swine flu suffers defeats this purpose.
3. More people infected = more risk of mutation = Resident Evil virus = we all dead
4. Chicken pox rarely kills and if so, people fall into one of the groups: immunocompromised, elderly or children. However, those susceptible for H1N1 largely falls within people 25 and younger, not the oldheads. Which means, you are next.
5. "If swine flu spreads of control, who cares right? We have a vaccine." First of all, the vaccine may or may not work, like the regular flu vaccine. It's a guessing game. Also, if you are young and healthy, you will have to wait behind the pregnant, the old and the babies. By that time, you might be dead. (Seriously.)

So people, moral of the story is please don't try to get the flu. Or please get it. Maybe it will cleanse your gene pool.