If you haven't read Jared Diamond's fantastic, explain-all-of-human-history epic book, do yourself a favor and pick it up. Lately, his theories have been going through my head more than ever given the recent headlines, that ring like odd historical echoes. As for guns, we have today's killings at Ft. Hood military base. In [...]

Earlier today, President Obama declared a nationwide "flu emergency" in response to the quickly spreading H1N1 virus. The accompanying chart, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows why. The number of people going to nationwide hospitals complaining of flu-like symptoms is skyrocketing. "Emergency" status will free up federal resources [...]

After writing about H1N1 for the past several weeks, I suddenly find that I have two kids who have been infected with the virus. I've been manifesting some mild symptoms, but haven't developed the full-blown fever or cough yet. Here's a first hand account I wrote up this morning about the [...]

If you've been in an airport lately, you have undoubtedly seen signs for protecting yourself against swine flu. While some might have just thought it was a blown-out of proportion media craze last May (which it partially was), its definitely being seen as a threat as winter flu season approaches. [...]

Poll results released Friday by the Harvard School of Public Health found that only 40 percent of adults plan to receive a swine flu vaccination and about half would vaccinate their children.  A story about those results runs in The Washington Post today, which also reported that research by both [...]

Spent the day talking with people who don't think anybody should vaccinate their children. After a couple of hours of it, I needed a nice stiff drink. Speaking with my pal Thomas Goetz, Deputy Editor of Wired, we discussed the way in which the internet-era has has reshaped our conception of [...]

Russian soccer fans have been told to drink whisky on their trip to Wales for next months World Cup qualifier to ward off the H1N1 swine flu virus, the head of the countrys supporter association VOB said Monday."We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whisky [...]

This is bizarre to me considering I stayed at this exact hotel when I visited Hong Kong last November!

The 200 or so guests and 100 staff have been ordered to stay inside Metropark Hotel in the Wanchai district for seven days, according to a Reuters report. The building [...]

¡Feliz Cinco De Mayo! Commemorating Mexico's victory over the French in 1862, today is a day of celebrating Mexican heritage and culture. Unfortunately this year, Mexico isn't really the safest spot on the planet to travel to right now. (Although, as MSNBC travel writer and expert Chris Elliott tweeted that [...]