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The discovery of bird flu virus particles in milk has moved the federal government to take more aggressive action to prevent the further spread of H5N1 on dairy farms. The Agriculture Department has rightly issued new testing recommendations meant to keep the virus from spreading across state lines. But this additional testing will do little to address the primary threat that H5N1 poses to humans: the infection of farmworkers. (Jennifer B. Nuzzo, Lauren Sauer and Nahid Bhadelia, 5/7)

Imagine a medical condition that disrupts people’s sleep, impacts their mental health and interferes with their work. It’s also associated with a range of uncomfortable symptoms, including night sweats, brain fog, joint aches, fatigue, weight gain, decreased libido and heart palpitations — all of which can last more than a decade. (Leana S. Wen, 5/7)

After four years of fighting about it, the World Health Organization has finally proclaimed that viruses, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID, can be spread through the air. (Maggie Fox, 5/7)

It should be hard — exceedingly hard — to obtain the synthetic DNA needed to recreate the virus that caused the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic without authorization. But my lab found that it’s surprisingly easy, even when ordering gene fragments from companies that check customers’ orders to detect hazardous sequences. (Kevin M. Esvelt, 5/8)

In a new paper in Nature Medicine, an international team of neurologists makes the compelling case that people with two copies of a gene called APOE4 aren’t just at risk of Alzheimer’s — they have a distinct form of the disease and are almost certain to develop its telltale brain plaques by age 65. (Lisa Jarvis, 5/7)