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If H5N1 turns into a full-blown pandemic, we are currently in chapter one. To prevent chapter two from becoming a reality, the most important tool in our arsenal will be widespread testing. Testing isn’t just about diagnosing people with the virus. Containing the spread of this highly pathogenic bird flu strain in cattle hinges on our ability to detect and track it. The H5N1 outbreak in dairy cows is widespread and spans multiple U.S. states. Although only one human infection with the virus has been documented, more infections are likely going undetected. Most importantly, unchecked transmission among cattle means the virus is increasingly bumping up against humans. Every human exposure, in turn, provides an opportunity for new mutations that could enable human-to-human transmission.The U....

Gina Moffa’s fear of flying took off early. When she was 10, her mother—overwhelmed by bad turbulence on a flight to Italy—clambered to the emergency exit and tried to get out of the plane. A fellow passenger offered her Valium, and a nun onboard prayed the Rosary with her. “And then she was OK,” says Moffa, now a grief therapist based in New York City. “But it taught me there was something to be afraid of.”That hasn’t lessened over the years. Moffa recently returned from a “precarious adventure” to the Portuguese island Madeira that involved flying in a tiny 12-seater plane for nearly three hours over the Atlantic. She almost didn't board. “They were like, ‘Ma'am, you're going to make us late—we have to get on before the winds come,’” she recalls.If your heart also takes a nosedive while ...

(TOKYO) — Loaves of bread have been taken off store shelves in Japan after the remains of “a small animal” believed to be a rat were found.Production of the bread was halted at a Tokyo factory, with 104,000 packages being recalled, according to Pasco Shikishima Corp.The company apologized and promised compensation.“We will do our utmost to strengthen our quality controls so that this will never happen again. We ask for your understanding and your cooperation,” it said in a statement this week.Japanese media reports said at least two people who bought the bread in Gunma Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, complained to the company about finding a rodent in the bread.The bread had been sold in various areas, including Ibaraki, Niigata, Kanagawa, Fukushima, Aomori and Tokyo, according to Pasco.Th...

(DES MOINES, Iowa) — As Cary Fowler and Geoffrey Hawtin began thinking about ways to prevent starvation and protect the world's food supply, they came up with what Fowler called “the craziest idea anybody ever had” — a global seed vault built into the side of an Arctic mountain.About 20 years ago, Fowler, now the U.S. special envoy for Global Food Security, and Hawtin, an agricultural scientist from the United Kingdom, envisioned the so-called “doomsday vault” as a backup spot for seeds that could be used to breed new crops if existing seed banks were threatened by wars, climate change or other upheaval. On Thursday, officials in Washington announced that Fowler and Hawtin would be named 2024 World Food Prize laureates for their work.“To a lot of people today, it sounds like a perfectly re...