Evolution+is+in+the+Air+EAT


 * 1) "if we are unlucky..." the author writes we will see evolution in action. What does she mean? Why would it by unlucky to see the avian virus evolve.
 * 2) It would be unlucky to see the Avian Virus evolve because it would almost wipe out our population. If the virus evolved it would cause a pandemic and kill people all around the world. If the virus were to evolve that would mean that it could then infect people... not just birds and we would suffer greatly.
 * 3) Define parasite.
 * 4) Parasites are little parcels of genes that are sent from one organism to another... either directly through sneezes, faces, semen,... or indirectly through carriers like insects.
 * 5) Define gene.
 * 6) genes are the basic hereditary traits that make up a species.
 * 7) She compares viruses to tiny parcels. Why? How are these parcels mailed?
 * 8) She compares them to tiny parcels because they are the simplest forms of parasites... they are mailed indirectly and directly as mentioned in question 2.
 * 9) 20 million people died of the Spanish Flu during World War II. Yet the author claims to know that this flu virus was particularly deadly not that it was a normal virus but because of the war and wartime "deprivation" people were more likely to get sick and die. What two pieces of evidence indicate this was a very deadly virus unlike the normal flu virus.
 * 10) This flu virus caused many deaths in young healthy adults and it was more lethal in mice than the other human flu viruses.
 * 11) What is H5N1?
 * 12) This is the virus that causes the avian flu. H5N1 has eight genes. It has killed birds and about 60 people... but it has killed more than half of the people who have been infected with it. It is not easily passed from person to person.
 * 13) Since H5N1 has killed mostly birds, why are we worried about it?
 * 14) It has killed over half of the people that it has infected... and if it evolved it would have a very very high death rate.
 * 15) Two processes could change the H5N1 in a deadly way: sex and mutation. What is viral sex and how could it change the virus? What is viral mutation and how could this change the virus?
 * 16) When two viruses emerge and create a new virus. It would change the virus because it would emerge with another virus to make the new virus easily transmitted and very lethal. This type of immersion was thought to be the reason that the flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968 came about.
 * 17) A mutate is when a virus gets accidental changes to its genetic material so that it becomes able to be transmitted from person to person. Mutations to the avian flu is what was thought to bring the 1918 pandemic.
 * 18) How can mutation lead to evolution (origin of new species)?
 * 19) mutations change the information content of the genes in a virus... creating an evolved virus.
 * 20) How can sex lead to evolution (origin of new species)?
 * 21) sex "shuffles the pack"- creating a new gene combination, thus creating a different virues.


 * information found on the "evolution is in the air" article by: Olivia Judson**