This week I revisited the science of Ebola.
In 2014, in the midst of the the outbreak in West Africa, I wrote a couple articles for the New York Times about how Ebola works and how it evolved. At the time, there were a lot of claims that Ebola was on the verge of becoming an airborne nightmare, which I tried to debunk with inteviews with virologists and evolutionary biologists. Afterwards, I wrote a new chapter about Ebola for the second edition of my book A Planet of Viruses, which came out last year.
While the outbreak has ended, research on it continues. And two studies published this week (and a third on the way) indicate that a mutation arose in the epidemic that made Ebola better at infecting human cells. That’s not the same thing as a virus sprouting wings, but it is a potentially worrying sign of Ebola’s adaptability.
Next week, I’m going to be traveling to do research for my book on heredity and an article (details to come). So I’ll be sending out the next Friday’s Elk on November 18.
January 28-29, 2017 Rancho Mirage Writers Festival
March 2-3, 2017 San Diego. The Future of Genome Medicine. Details here.
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Best wishes, Carl
Originally published November 4, 2016. Copyright 2016 Carl Zimmer.