This fall I gave a number of talks about the flu, and how evolutionary biologists are helping to make sense of this vexing virus. The University of British Columbia, where I spoke in November, has posted the lecture I gave there on YouTube. For ease of viewing, I’ve embedded all six segments of the talk below.
A few caveats. A couple labels got lost in the conversion of my Keynote to Powerpoint during the preparation of the video. And the numbers I gave for the 2009 H1N1 flu are now a bit out of date. As of this week, the Centers for Disease Control estimate that about 50 million people in the U.S. have come down with the new flu strain since it first hit the country in April. 2009 H1N1 is responsible for just about all the flu so far this year. For the past few weeks it has been subsiding, but it may come back for another whack at us in a few weeks. Meanwhile, there hasn’t been any seasonal flu yet. Of the people who contracted 2009 H1N1 in the United States, about 10,000 have died. (As I mention in the talk, 36,000 people a year die of the seasonal flu in the U.S.)
And now, without further ado, I give you the flu!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6:
December 12th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Loved the talk at UMass. I wanted to ask if there were any advantages to getting vaccinated after already having the Flu? Do I only now have antibodies for the specific type of flu that I got?
[CZ: Glad you liked the talk, Luke. As for advice about getting a vaccine, I'm going to defer to your doctor.]
December 13th, 2009 at 6:09 am
[...] Carl Zimmer shows how Charles Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species can help us understand H1N1 in 2009, and perhaps even kill it. [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Hm, Luke asked my question too. By the time there was enough vaccine available for my low risk category, I’d already had the flu and now I wasn’t sure if there was any purpose in getting the shot or not. I wouldn’t think so, but guess I’ll talk to the health folks.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:05 am
[...] sites, or based on reports voluntarily submitted by various hospitals, providers, etc. Carl Zimmer has highlighted the CDC’s effort to estimate the big picture – total infections, [...]
January 4th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
[...] This fall, I gave a number of lectures about the evolution of swine flu. By the time I got to the end of the talk, I could tell that a lot of people in the audience were feeling a bit resigned, given the way evolution allows viruses like the flu to evade our best attacks. (Here’s the full video of my lecture at the University of British Columbia.) [...]
January 11th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Why is the H1N1 different this year? It appears to me that it was here for years, and nobody took notice.
This site (MN dpt of health) shows that vaccines commonly covered for variants of this strain.
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/diseases/flu/stats/weeklyold.html
[CZ: Dan, "H1N1" refers to the families to which two surface proteins on the virus belong. But the original H1 and N1 proteins have evolved into lots of related forms, which have then been mixed into new combinations, and then been mixed in turn with other versions of the flu's other genes. This picture sums up what is new about this year's virus--old parts in new combinations.]
February 16th, 2010 at 11:29 am
[...] Last March a new kind of flu came on the scene–the 2009 H1N1 flu, a k a swine flu. Hatched from an eldritch mingling of viruses infecting humans, birds, and pigs, it swept across the world. Here in the United States, the CDC estimates that between 41 and 84 million people came down with swine flu between April and January. Of those infected, between 8,330 and 17,160 are estimated to have died. For more details on the evolution of this new flu strain, here’s a video of a lecture I gave in November. [...]