Ducks Are Smart Too

The common assumption that many people have is that birds are rather dumb animals, however, a recent experiment proves that birds are actually fairly smart. Zoologists Antone Martinho III and Alex Kacelnik performed a study on 1-day-old ducklings to test their ability to establish abstract relationships between sensory inputs such as color and shape. After just being born, these ducklings were able to simply move towards the color or shape of the object that they had been shown prior to the experiment. 

This ability to establish relationships comes from the ducks' ability to imprint which allows them to recognize and follow their mothers. This study is quite important because it shows, for the first time, that a nonhuman animal can connect these types of abstract relationships without any training. These animals, that are normally associated with the inability to undergo intelligent thought processes, are now viewed differently. The experiment shows us that animals' minds are full of complexities that we have yet to discover.

How easy it is to create a deadly mutant virus

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/health/amateur-biologists-are-new-fear-in-making-a-mutant-flu-virus.html?ref=biologyandbiochemistry
Amateurs creating destruction

After months of intense worldwide debate, a group of scientists brought together by the World Health Organization recommended last week in favor of publishing the results. But when they do, will it be possible for others to recreate the mutant virus?
One of the most serious concerns of the scientists, against giving out the information, is that new deadly H5N1 mutated virus could be accidently created in the "lab" of some "inventive American" as they said. Over recent decades the amount of amateur scientists has increased dramatically, and some groups are past 2,000 members.

 

As you can see compared to the H1N1 that ran rampant across the world just a few years ago, the H5N1 virus is much deadly and nearly fatal each time it contracts a victim.

 

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/sep1812avian.html

Here you can clearly see that when the H5N1 broke out in a duck farm in China nearly 50% of the contracted ducks died and the rest infected were killed off for safety measures. If this can do this much damage to a flock of ducks imagine what it would do to the human population had it got loose? My opinion is that the virus needs to be rounded up and its information kept hidden away from the evils of the world so that there doesn't become a mass biochemical warfare weapon of clear mass destruction.