Bird flu viruses may pack a little taste of home to help them adapt to life in new hosts.
Viruses usually infect only certain types of hosts. For instance, many viruses that infect humans don’t infect other animals. But influenza viruses often seem to jump from birds to other species. In 2009, the H1N1 “swine flu” made the leap from birds to pigs and then into people, setting off a pandemic (SN: 12/18/09). Even now, an outbreak of avian influenza is infecting and killing birds, sea mammals and some other animals around the world (SN: 1/25/24). No one knows whether that flu virus may eventually infect people and, if
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