Bird flu hasn’t been in the news much recently, but that doesn’t mean that fears about it have gone away.

The most recent news is that it appears that there may be a case of human-to-human transmission, where the father of a man in China who died from bird flu has also contracted it. The man appears to have developed bird flu without any contact with infected birds.

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Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy Blog has a great new word: “Cosmortology”. The word comes up in relation to recent reports that observing dark energy might shorten the life of the universe; it would mean causing the death of the universe, or studying the death of the universe.

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CBS has announced the schedule for the seven new episodes of Jericho. They’ll air on Tuesdays, starting February 12th, at 10PM. That should keep them out of American Idol’s way and give them some chance of success. Normally February is “sweeps month”, when ratings count the most for the networks and advertising rates are set; with the writer’s strike and lack of new shows for this February I have no idea if that will still hold.

In the meantime, Jericho Sesason one is out on DVD and available for download via iTunes and also for download to your Windows computer, supported mobile device, or networked Series 2 or Series 3/HD Tivo via Amazon Unbox.

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