Oh god, oh dear god.

Stop the presses: Contagion is coming true.

Well, in ferrets at least. Yep. Seems as if a mad Dutch scientist has created a strain of bird flu that can be transmitted from ferret to ferret without direct contact--through the air. This is terrifying the scientific community, as the avian flu was one of the most deadly ever recorded in humans--it killed six in ten who contracted the virus. The only saving graces preventing the bird flu from spiraling out of control and killing 60% of the earth's population (both in 2006 when it was all the rage, and now) are (a) the lucky fact that, so far, the only way people have contracted bird flu is from birds themselves, and (b) the lucky fact that that the virus spreads very inefficiently, binding to cells only very deep in human lungs.

Because bird flu is so deadly (once contracted), many scientists have been concerned that it could mutate into a strain that is easily spread from human to human via coughs and sneezes and whatnot. Enter Ron Fouchier, Dutch researcher at Erasmus Medical Center, who embarked on a course of research that has lead to the existence of a bird flu strain that can be easily spread from human to human via coughs and sneezes and whatnot.

Scientific American describes the research as follows:

To help answer [the question of whether bird flu could ever morph into a disease that can spread among people, via a cough or sneeze, by attaching to nasal or tracheal membranes, as the seasonal flu does], Ron Fouchier...and his team "mutated the hell out of H5N1" and looked at how readily it would bind with cells in the respiratory tract. What they found is that with as few as five single mutations it gained the ability to latch onto cells in the nasal and tracheal passageways, which, Fouchier added as understated emphasis, "seemed to be very bad news."

The variety that they had created, however, when tested in ferrets (the best animal model for influenza research) still did not transmit very easily just through close contact. It wasn't until "someone finally convinced me to do something really, really stupid," Fouchier said, that they observed the deadly H5N1 become a viable aerosol virus. In the...experiment, they let the virus itself evolve to gain that killer capacity. To do that, they put the mutated virus in the nose of one ferret; after that ferret got sick, they put infected material from the first ferret into the nose of a second. After repeating this 10 times, H5N1 became as easily transmissible as the seasonal flu.

The lesson from these admittedly high-risk experiments is that "the H5N1 virus can become airborne," Fouchier concluded—and that "re-assortment with mammalian viruses is not needed" for it to evolve to spread through the air. And each of these mutations has already been observed in animals. "The mutations are out there, but they have not gotten together yet," Osterhaus said.

Think we're safe because this flu has so far only infected ferrets? Bad news on that front. As ScienceInsider notes:

Ferrets aren't humans, but in studies to date, any influenza strain that has been able to pass among ferrets has also been transmissible among humans, and vice versa, says Fouchier: "That could be different this time, but I wouldn't bet any money on it."

Hence the title of this post: Oh god, oh dear god. I think it is high time to invest in some emergency face masks (designer, if you must), and to perfect the art of the antiflu elbow-bump (endorsed by Nobel Laureates!).

Thanks to Mahdroo for the tip on this one.

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In other news, it seems I may have jumped on this honey-not-being-honey bandwagon a little too early. (Thanks to Anonymous for pointing this out.) I still think it makes sense to buy locally-produced honey, though...if you ask me. Which nobody did--but hell, it's my blog, eh?