Hello and welcome to Babbage on Economist Radio. I'm Kenneth Kukie, a senior editor at

the Economist, and coming up on today's show, what can be learned from the Spanish flu

pandemic, which killed over 50 million people a hundred years ago.

In some ways you could argue that we were the architects of our own misery.

And I speak to Karl Malamood, an internet activist from public.resource.org, about access

to government information and data.

The principle that edicts of government must be available to read and speak is a core

principle we're going after.

And 4,000 meters under the sea, how do creatures get their food?

The amount of food that was dropping to the bottom of the ocean was not sufficient to explain

the amount of life that they could see.

But first, the Spanish flu of 1918 was probably the worst catastrophe of the 20th century.

It is thought to have killed more people than both world wars put together.

And 100 years on, what lessons can be learned?

And how can we avoid a similar pandemic today?

I'm joined on the line by Laura Spinney, a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider,

the Spanish flu of 1918, and how it changed the world.

Hello Laura.

Hi.

Laura, first, how is it that we know how many people died of Spanish flu in 1918?

Well, it's not an easy question actually.

In the 1920s, the first estimates were at about 20 million people died.

...