Between bouts of frantic hand washing, we can scarcely get away from news about the swine flu outbreak. New York Times offers a good roundup of what's happened so far, including the situation in Mexico and the US declaring a public health emergency. Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, looks at how scientists are trying to solve the puzzle -- much as Joe DeRisi and various research groups did for SARS back in the day.
Susan Perkins at Dechronization posts a short piece on different ways people are tracking the flu's spread, including her favorite: "Rod Page's Timemap, which allows users to see the spread through time on a map of the world. ... It is really cool to see that some of the databases and information sources have finally come together in ways that are actually allowing for rapid dissemination of these types of data."
And if the phrase "swine flu" leaves you completely baffled, here's a Q&A from David Bradley at Sciencebase to clear up some of the basic confusion. (No, this is not the same flu strain that broke out in 1918.)