The (medical) news in the last few days has been, without doubt, the H1N1 strain commonly found in pigs (aka Swine/Mexican) flu. The journalistic news of the week was probably the treatment of the outbreak with different outlets either downplaying the importance of the virus [Guardian] or preparing their readership for imminent doom [El Pais, ES]

For those that are skeptic about the role of science in society (beyond that of fostering knowledge for cross words and collecting random facts) look no further than the specials put together by the likes of Science or Nature. The knowledge we now have will be crucial in understanding and containing this (and future) pandemics. It is not the fruit of a few days of work but has been distelled through many years of work when the political and social pressure was not there (at least not to this extent).

One of the most interesting facts about the strain of the H1N1 virus making the headlines during the last few (or maybe not so few anymore) days is its the way it evolved. Starting from a virus affecting only pigs, it learned (in the evolutionary sense, that is, by recombination, mutation and selection) how to infect humans from pigs and, unsurprisingly, from humans to humans.

Now that the first wave might have started to level and that the effects seem to be similar to those of other flus it might be the right time to consider that, as it reaches more people in more places (as a result of both globalisation and increase in the world’s population), the room the virus has to mutate and acquire new capabilities (potentially by mixing with other viruses in the same host) increases dangerously. One of the most infamous pandemics in human history, the Spanish flu (also a H1N1 virus) became famous on the second wave (see figure extracted from here).