You may have seen circulating around the Web these cheesy, scaremongering PSA’s, which were on every TV in the nation in 1976. US health officials meant well--after an H1N1 outbreak at an Army Base in Fort Dix, New Jersey, they were worried about a pandemic potentially as dangerous as the 1918 flu outbreak--but in hindsight, the widespread, nationwide immunization program created plenty of problems of its own far outweighing the spread of the flu. Given today's news that the WHO has declared H1N1 a global pandemic, it's good to remember that in some ways, we've been through this before.
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Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?
In the days of prejudice a prophet did stand up and prophesy, In a hundred years time a great king shall come up out of the land of Africa and rule this land in wisdom and justice. And the people did mock and scorn saying, this shall be so in the time when swine do fly. And the profit did proclaim even as you say let it be so. A hundred years did pass and that which was said concerning the great king was fulfilled and lo the swine flu.