On episode #174 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Rich consider whether pet dogs might transmit human noroviruses, and an RNA virus microRNA that might be involved in oncogenesis. You can find TWiV #174 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.

On episode #173 of the podcast This Week in Virology, the TWiVites discuss seroevidence for human infection with avian influenza H5N1, and the discovery of a new influenza virus in Guatemalan bats. You can find TWiV #173 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.

Ron Fouchier has discussed his influenza H5N1 transmission experiments in ferrets at an ASM Biodefense Conference, clarifying several assumptions about the transmissibility of the virus in this animal model. Two different influenza H5N1 strains were used for Fouchier's experiments: a wild type virus, and a mutated virus (we'll call it mutH5N1). He ...

On episode #172 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent and Kathy discuss how a virus may cause disease distant from its replication site, then review a day in the life of a senior microbiology professor. You can find TWiV #172 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.

The fatality rate for human infections with avian influenza H5N1 is widely quoted at >50%, based on the number of deaths among the fewer than 600 cases confirmed by the World Health Organization. Wang, Parides, and Palese suggest that this number is an overestimate: ...the stringent criteria for confirmation of ...