My understanding is that the higher mutation rate of viruses is due to the lack of proofreading capability of RNA polymerase. This leads to orders of magnitude greater accumulation of errors than with DNA replication (a good explanation:
http://www.virology.ws/2009/05/10/the-error-prone-ways-of-rna-synthesis/).

The reason I don’t think the article was attributing the higher mutation rate to reassortment alone due to the way it was said, “As a bonus…” making it seem like there were two mechanisms at play. Even if I read it the wrong way (not unlikely), and reassorment *is* the reason, humans have an analogous (or orthologous) mechanism, recombination, that occurs when we make gametes, so I don’t see how that would account for a higher mutation rate in viruses either.

 I’m not trying to be right. If there’s a mechanism unique to viruses or anything really that I don’t understand, I want to learn.

Thanks again!

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201062

“If a single host (a human, a chicken, or other animal) is infected by two different strains of the influenza virus, then it is possible that new assembled viral particles will be created from segments whose origin is mixed, some coming from one strain and some coming from another. The new reassortant strain will share properties of both of its parental lineages.”

(From the Wikipedia entry on Reassortment)

But I guess some people think it makes them far-sighted rather than callous to ignore that? Death of one man is a tragedy, and all.

And to clear something up: you wrote:
H5N1, the famous bird flu, is deadly to humans. Of the 566 people who have contracted this form of influenza, 332 have died…
That statistic terrifies people and IT’S COMPLETELY WRONG! I’ll let Vincent Racaniello take over:This statement refers to the fact that nearly 60% of the 573 WHO-confirmed H5N1 cases have died. This death rate appears staggering until one considers how it is calculated. The WHO case definition for H5N1 influenza states that an individual must have a febrile respiratory illness, known exposure to H5N1 virus in the previous 7 days, and confirmation of infection by virus culture, polymerase chain reaction, or tests for antibodies. These conditions are highly unlikely to be fulfilled in rural populations where most H5N1 infections probably occur. The case fatality ratio can only be calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the total number of infections – and we do not know the latter number. Of ten large studies that have tested for H5N1 antibodies in rural populations, two were negative and 5 reported the presence of H5 antibodies in 0.2 – 5.6% of indiviudals. Much more work needs to be done to determine the actual fatality rate of influenza H5N1, but the WHO estimate is orders of magnitude too high.More at: http://www.virology.ws/2012/01/09/n-y-times-h5n1-ferret-research-should-not-have-been-done/

I thought the number of mutations would be (mutation rate) x (genome size). The fact that it has 8 separate units is immaterial. I’m not a virologist, so maybe the initiation/termination part of replication is especially mutagenic?

Also, when the article says, “Everybody does that. But influenza has eight die, not one.”  I’m not sure how that follows. Humans have 46 chromosomes, which have multiple independent origins of replication. So even if the virus has 8 “chromosomes”  (they’re not considered chromosomes for reasons I don’t know), that doesn’t make sense. Our ~30,000 genes are mutating independently, just like H5N1′s 8.

Thanks!

Influenza in general is an equal-opportunity menace, particularly dangerous when a strain is so unfamiliar that humanity lacks immunity to it. This would put at great risk anyone trying to assemble a pandemic H5N1 to launch at “target” populations. Indeed, such an attack would unleash global contagion that would swiftly and inevitably incapacitate an aggressor’s own people. Influenza doesn’t respect borders.

And? So? People (some) are incredibly stupid and short-sighted and bat-shit crazy. If this is pretty easy to do, there might be a group that wouldn’t care that you killed his friends… as long as it wiped out “the Current World Order(tm).” Or who supposed that they could provide some kind of protection for “the chosen people.”

I’m not particularly scared of terrorists, sharks and falling meteors. But flu scares me.

Read Frank Herbert’s “The White Plague.” Dude engineers a flu-like virus to kill all the women on the planet after the IRA blows up his wife.

Even arguably irrational terrorists like Aum Shinrikyo never got into anything near as notoriously unpredictable and uncontrollable as the flu, Hall writes. Of course, his argument is pretty similar to the one scientists used to use to reassure themselves that H5N1 couldn’t be both deadly and human transmissible: We’ve not seen this happen before, so it won’t.

Not really the same.  

In biological terms, “we haven’t seen this happen before …” should usually be modified with “… but if there are no hard-and-fast physical, chemical, or biological reasons why it shouldn’t, then we’re probably going to see it happen at some point“.  And to deny that is to deny the existence of complex and multi-factorial physical phenomena, which is patently daft, seeing as how those are precisely the forces which permeate, influence, and evolve the natural world.

But when thinking about approaches that terrorists might use, “we haven’t seen this happen before…” should usually be modified with “… but it might be possible, because we haven’t always successfully been able to think in terms of their mindset“.  So denying that it’s possible, in this case, merely reinforces the failure to think differently.  However, by even being able to phrase the statement, you gain insight.  

So; two very different arguments, which just happen to start the same way.

There have been die offs and pandemics before, there will be more.  It will happen eventually either naturally or with help.
It reminds me of Western US forest fires.  The forest service puts out the small ones year after year until enough brush builds up that eventually there is a fire that gets out of control.  After it has run its course, nature has a nice bump and life comes back with more vigor than before the fire.

But it is also about that. This really depresses me–that we can do this in the name of science and human life and apparently not even think twice about it. People will say that worries about a pandemic that could kill millions justifies it, but people will say a lot of things.

Otherwise an interesting and scary read.

It’s like the whole who-ha over keeping the atom bomb a secret. It was almost unanimously agreed among scientists that all the Russians really needed to know was that it was possible. The passing of secrets merely sped up the process. The cat’s out of the bag as far as I’m concerned. If you’re worried about Al-Qaeda, don’t. Either you should already be worried, because you think they have access to this technology, or you’re sober enough to understand that Al-Qaeda’s just a paper tiger and a boogie man.