Ninety years ago the Spanish flu swept across the globe, killing between 50 and 100 million people in only a few months. Since then, the specter of another flu pandemic dealing death and woe around the world has periodically terrified the medical and popular communities. But scientists searching for ways to prevent a similar outbreak in the form of the H5N1 bird flu have found a cure for the deadliest flu in the most unlikely place: nonagenarian immune systems.

Maybe we saw The Andromeda Strain a few too many times in our formative years, but we can´t help shivering when we hear about microbiologists reanimating long-dormant lethal viruses. And those biologists working to make human limbs grow back: Haven´t we seen that film?