PROJECT BLUE

By JAMES TENAFLY

Bored scientists in Lyon, France are acting out the premise of Stephen King’s The Stand. In an attempt to better understand just how fucked we’ll be when a real superflu comes along, virologists at the Jean Mérieux/INSERM facility are blending genetic material from the highly contagious H1N1 virus, known everywhere as swine flu, with its more lethal cousin H5N1, aka avian flu. The researchers hope to determine whether, left to their own devices, the two viruses might reassort to create a disease with the worst traits of both its progenitors. All this leaves one to wonder if there’s a ban on horror in France? That would seem the only logical explanation for a bunch of presumably intelligent scientists living out the most cliched zombie movie plot ever.