Nature Discuses Five Questions Regarding the Mutation of H5N1 Influenza to Allow Direct Mammalian Transmission. (June 22, 2012)

In an article freely available in the June 21, 2012 issue of Nature Ed Yong notes that: "Scientists now know that the deadly bird flu virus is capable of causing a human pandemic. That makes tackling the remaining unknowns all the more urgent."

Those 5 questions:

1. Why is it so successful?

2. Where is it now?

3. How does it kill?

4. Will it become transmissible in humans?

5. What else could cause a pandemic?

As Mr Yong reports: "[W]hat is most unsettling about [the two papers identifying mutations that give H5N1 the ability to spread through the air between ferrets], say many in the flu community, is the evidence they provide that the wild virus could spark a pandemic on its own. That threat makes the outstanding scientific mysteries about this tiny RNA virus — its genome just 14,000 letters long — even more pressing. Here are five of the biggest puzzles, and what researchers are doing to solve them.

And listen to Science's Editor in Chief, Bruce Alberts, summarizing the events leading up to the eventual full publication of the  Science and Nature papers and the effects of over redacting so-called duel-use reseach..