The Flu Pandemic of 1918

In light of the resurgence of the 'Swine Flu'; I thought I might repost this blog for folks who may have missed it.

The year is 1918. American troops have joined the allies fighting the war raging in Europe. By the end of The Great War over 100,000 American soldiers died. But it was not only bullets, bombs or poison gas that slaughtered them quickly and terribly by the tens of thousands. A ruthless killer too small to be seen by the most powerful microscopes of the age and too illusive to be known by the best scientific minds was responsible for the deaths of half of the U.S. troops killed in the European theater. The killer was influenza.The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more humans worldwide in one year than died in the four years of the Bubonic Plaque in the mid thirteen hundreds. Between the years 1918 and 1919, 20-40 million died of influenza. Twenty-eight per cent of Americans were infected, 675,000 of all classes died, the rich and the poor. The flu raced around the world along trade routes and shipping lanes infecting twenty per cent of the population of the planet. It was a true pandemic.So prevalent was the disease small children skipped rope to this grim rhyme.

I had a little bird,Its name was Enza.

I opened a window,And In-flu-enza.

The Centers for Disease Control, (CDC) and other government agencies were aggressive in their response to the so called ‘Swine Flu’ of 2009 partly because of what happened in 1918. The epidemic of 1918 was caused by a variant of flu virus that had not been seen before. As a result those exposed had little or no immunity to this novel virus. Because the Swine Flu virus is also a new strain, government agencies were afraid that millions worldwide could be infected and die just as they did in the early part of the 20th century.The flu of 1918, like the Swine Flu, first appeared in the spring and like the Swine Flu was mild. So mild it was called the ‘three day fever’. Few deaths were reported and most patients recovered in a few days. The following fall the 1918 flu returned with incredible virulence. Millions were infected and millions died. Many of the affected died within hours or days. People told of visiting a neighbor one day only to find the next day the person was dead.

The so-called Swine Flu is a variety of the Influenza A N1H1 strain similar to the one that caused the 1918 flu, but that does not mean it will be as virulent. Many factors affect the virulence of a flu virus and even though they are the same subtype, they can be very different.The N1H1 subtype is simply a description of two proteins found on the surface of most viruses and is used to differentiate between different strains of Influenza, such as Influenza A, one of the viruses responsible for seasonal Flu. The H refers to a protein called Hemagglutinin (He-ma-glue-tin-in). The Hemagglutinin helps the virus particle stick to the cell it will infect. There are 16 types. The N refers to an enzyme called Neuramidase (Nur-am-eeh-daze). There are 9 types. The Neuramidase helps the newly formed virus particles release from the surface of the infected cell. This enzyme is inhibited by anti-flu medications such as Relenza and Tamiflu. If the new virus particles stay stuck to the infected cell they can’t go out and infect more cells.

In light of the loss of life in 1918-19, the government was cautious in its approach to this latest novel virus. This is not to say that the Swine Flu will be just like the Flu of 1918 just because there are similarities, such as both being a strain of Influenza A H1N1 and starting out mild in the Spring.Luckily, unlike the victims of the 1918 Flu, we have effective antiviral drugs, better public health and communication abilities, as well as the capability of producing a vaccine.

Unfortunately these were not available to the millions who died in the 1918 pandemic.

Our Ancestors the Bacteria

Reading time about 90 seconds

Scientists are not yet sure as to where life on Earth first appeared or how it began. The closer they get to the time, some 3-4 Billion years ago, when the first organization of organic molecules became something we would recognize as being alive, the more difficult it is to understand.

The one thing they do know is that our ancestors were single celled organisms best described as primitive bacteria. Yes I said bacteria. I know that a lot of folks argue that we humans are not descended from apes, they're right we aren’t, but the truth for those folks is probably worse. All of us, every living thing on Earth whether plant; animal or insect share a common bacterial ancestor which appeared at least 3.5 billion years ago. They know that because these early bacteria left chemical signs in rocks that old.

These bacteria solved most of the problems of cell chemistry and developed the mechanisms of heredity long before multicellular organisms evolved. By the time they did most of the hard work of living had been done. How did they do it? Well, by trial and error. The things that worked were preserved and the things that didn’t perished. This process did not happen quickly or easily. Countless billions and billions of experiments were made by those primitive bacteria over billions of years. The reason so many tries could be accomplished is because of the rapid rate of reproduction by such simple creatures. Today a bacterium under ideal conditions can produce a new generation every 20 minutes, three each hour, 72 new generations per day and 25,632 per year. Can you imagine how many generations can be produced in 2 billion years? How many experiments can be tried?

So how did these experiments come about? Well, through a thing called mutation. Every time a bacteria or a modern cell divides it copies its DNA and passes along a copy to the new cell or bacteria. Sometimes an error in copying happens and that is passed to the new cell. If this error results in the new cell being better able to survive to reproduce, then it is preserved and passed along to its offspring. If it harms the organism’s chances to live to reproduce then it probably won’t be preserved in the population.

At 3 generations per day for 2 billion years you can see where a lot of errors can be passed along even if the rate at which an error in copying is made happens say once every million generations. That sounds pretty iffy at only one error per million generations, I know. But, we are not just dealing with one bacterium multiplying over the span of 2 billion years, but untold trillions of billons of trillions of bacteria dividing and subject to an error. You can see how over deep time there were many opportunities for copying errors and many, many experiments.

Maybe the lowly bacteria deserves a bit more respect.

Baby Steps on the Moon

Reading time about 30 seconds


Forty years ago today the human race reached another world. Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle’s landing pad into history. I remember watching the fuzzy, ghostly image while waiting to ship out for Vietnam. Even though my thoughts were primarily about where I was going, and how much I didn’t want to go, that image griped my attention and jammed everything but it to the back of my mind.

What an achievement for a species that a little over a century ago dreamed of powered flight. The landing on the moon will be remembered as one of the greatest achievements of the human race. It has been pointed out to me that 200 years from now people will speak of it with the same reverence given to Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus, and the Wright brothers, maybe more so.

It is truly an amazing time to be alive. To have witnessed our landing on the Moon is like being present for the discovery of the New World.

Sea Ice and Climate Change

Reading time about 40 seconds

Why are scientists so worried about melting of sea ice at or near the poles?

Well, aside from the fact that it's melting is a pretty good indication that the planet is warming, it’s scary because of a thing called ‘positive feedback’, which despite sounding so upbeat is in the case of global warming a potential catastrophe.

An example of Positive Feedback is when an event such as warming of the oceans creates more warming of the oceans. So, how does sea ice come into this? We all know that a dark object absorbs more heat from the sun than a white one does. As the sea warms and melts more white sea ice there is less ice to reflect heat and more dark sea surface to absorb it, the sea warms melting more ice exposing more sea surface to absorb heat, etc. The dangerous part is that this vicious cycle increases in speed until it is at a ‘tipping point’ beyond which there is no going back.

And that’s why scientists are worried.

Happy Light Year?

Reading time about 90 seconds

A light year isn’t a measure of time, like ‘Happy New Light Year!’ or ‘That’s not gonna happen this Light Year’.

A light year is a way to measure distance. Astronomers deal with such large distances it is more convenient to use light years when talking about how far away astronomical bodies are. It is defined as the distance light travels in one Earth year. The speed of light is about 300,000 kilometers per second or about 186,000 miles per second. At that speed light can cover about 9,500,000,000,000 (9 1/2 trillion) kilometers or about 6,000,000,000,000 (6 trillion) miles in one year.

Astronomers sometimes speak of light seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months as well.

If we want to get technical a light year is the distance light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year, which is 365 ¼ days. That ¼ is the reason we add a day every four years -- Leap Year. It keeps the calendar right. The reason for measuring the speed of light in a vacuum is that the speed of light can vary depending on what it is passing through. For instance, the speed of light through water is 225,000 kilometers per second (140,000 miles/sec) and in glass about 200,000 kilometers per second (124, 000 miles per second).

So how do we use light years to describe the distance of astronomical bodies? Well, we can say the Earth is 26,000 light years from the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which is 100,000 light years across. The nearest star, Proxima Centuri, is 4.22 light years from us. We can also use light minutes to describe the distance to our sun as 8 light minutes. Our Moon is 1 ¼ light seconds away. The visible edge of the universe is around 13 billion light years away.

Another way to look at light years or light minutes is as a way of looking into the past. For example, if it takes light 8 minutes to get to our eyes from the sun, that means we are seeing the sun as it WAS 8 minutes ago. So, if the sun were to explode right now, it would be 8 minutes before we knew it and no sooner, no way, no how.