Infected Bird...POOP ?

The Swine Flu A.K.A “Bird Flu” has been a major issue in America for a while now. Scientists have tried to come up with ways to prevent the flu from spreading throughout the country. The article, “Track bird flu one poop at a time” by Rachel Ehrenberg is a story about how scientists trained mice to locate bird poop that was infected with the flu or other types of diseases. The article states, “Ducks and geese can excrete large amounts of flu virus, so scientists have now trained mice, and hope to teach dogs, to sniff out infected bird poop,” (paragraph 1). Therefore, not only are mice involved in the tracking of bird poop, but also dogs. I believe that dogs would be a better candidate to locate bird poop only because they are good at sniffing things. Moreover many police use and train them to help during a search some similar event. The idea of mice finding infected bird poop may seem crazy, but in fact, the author included that mice have found infected poop 90% more than finding uninfected poop. Therefore, this could be a new solution to stop the spread of the flu virus in the human race. One important fact that was interesting was that ducks were the species that have more flu virus than other birds. This is important because ducks live in the water, so they are easily able to affect others in different cities with the virus. This is how a virus can spread from one part of the country to another. Basically, if mice and other animals were able to “sniff” out infected bird poop, then maybe the flu virus wouldn’t have such a large outbreak during the winter or any season for that matter.

This article relates to science because its main focus is about the flu. The flu is a virus, and therefore has a lot to do with people’s immune systems. Even though the article didn’t directly state these concepts, it is apparent that the center focus of this story has to do with science. The flu virus is has mainly the same symptoms as a regular cold, but it is a little more serious in my opinion. Not only is this article related to the human body and viruses, but it also has to do with animals, specifically mice and dogs, and the way they are able to use their senses in an outside environment. In other words, there must be some kind of connection mice has in order for them to locate a specific infected type of bird poop. Evidently, this has a lot to do with science, specifically biology and some ecology.

I think that this was a fascinating article, not only because it has a catchy title, but also because I would have never known that bird poop on the ground could possibly be infected with the flu. This is informative for many people, even teens. After the major outbreak of swine flu in 2009, I think that it is vital for scientists to find solutions to stop the spread of this virus and inform people on their research. Apparently, this article deserves to be on science news websites and magazines.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/62540/title/Tracking_bird_flu_one_poop_at_a_time