Wow: Deadly 1918 Epidemic Linked to Bird Flu, Scientists Say - New York Times: Two teams of federal and university scientists announced today that they had resurrected the 1918 influenza virus, the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, and had found that unlike the viruses that caused more recent flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968, the 1918 virus was actually a bird flu that jumped directly to humans. Gives more urgency to tracking and cordning off any outbreaks of avian flu.