This is idiotic. Of course we should research viruses. Thoroughly. Of course it's dangerous. So is getting out of bed in the morning; so is driving to work. Not researching viruses is far more dangerous than what he's doing. Life is a series of risk assessments; this is a good one. Asking the question should be a formality for the journalist. Giving it more than a paragraph of coverage is exhibiting ignorance of the most basic level of medical understanding.

Well apparently more than a few domain experts agree with the thrust of the article - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-fund...

This article is okay, but it is a shining example of the recent, disappointing editorial shift at PM. It's always been aimed at a popular audience (haha), but recently, there is a focus on articles with a strong narrative and lots of relatable human moments (He likes jazz!), with little or no actual information.

I mean, the risk of different animal strains mixing in the wild is presented as the Hokey-Pokey, you put the bird flu in, you put the swine flu in, you shake it all about, etc.

There's also stupid misinformation presented about dangerous things; two I remember are a warning not to use an uninsulated tool to cut a live wire (especially for their audience, just don't do it!) and a warning to back off of ABS brakes if you need to steer.

Okay, I'll bite - what misinformation is there in warning people not to use an uninsulated tool to cut a live wire? Seems like good advice to me.

People simply shouldn't cut live wires (unplug, pull battery, etc.).

Whatever exceptions there might be aren't terribly relevant to the general readership of Popular Mechanics.

Isn't humanity resistant to this virus now?

I gather we're not "immunologically immune" to it ... but then again a lot of olders seemed to have greater immunity to it.

Once you get the surface proteins replicated, you can test them against a bank of sera of current people and look for antibody reactions.

What could possibly go wrong?