Though it may seem like merely a yearly inconvenience to most, the flu in fact kills around 36,000 Americans annually and costs the country between $71 and $167 billion dollars; the equivalent of 10 September 11ths in deaths and a Hurricane Katrina in damages every year. Most attempts to prevent the flu focus on vaccination, but a new study suggests drugs could actually prevent the deadliest symptoms of the disease.

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Where does the flu come from? Scientists at the University of Cambridge and the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Surveillance Network tracked the migrations of flu viruses and discovered that the most common originate in East and Southeast Asia and spread in a distinctive pattern around the world. Understanding how these viruses evolve and travel will lead to better vaccines against flu epidemics that currently infect 5 to 15 percent of the world's population each year.

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We know lipids as the molecules in cholesterol, fats, oils, and waxes (different from fatty acids, like the unhealthy transfats New York City recently banned). We're maybe less familiar with them as a key structural component of cell membranes. They are not only part of the mix that makes up the semipermeable membrane between the cell wall and the guts of a cell, they're also responsible for shielding a cell's organelles, enclosing each in a protective membrane.

Lipids also make up the protective outer layer on viruses (called an envelope). Read Full Story ]

Yesterday morning, 5 am: Oh s***. I'm done for. The viral infection so potent it fells healthy 20-somethings for a week at a time, the epidemic so ubiquitous in our New York offices that it's now referred to simply as the PopSci Plague, the flu that crushes your brain and blows it through your digestive tract has finally come for me. It is my time. I can feel it: A sore throat and vague headache that are the opening salvos of a dispiriting scorched-earth campaign. It's too late to fight.

Or is it?

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