This episode is presented by eBay.

Rob, everyone loves a deal and a bargain from time to time, don't they? Absolutely, mate. And do you know where you can grab a great deal? Talk to me. Where? The eBay app. Yes, you are correct. You didn't need to talk to me. I already knew it. I love eBay. When you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. there's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else.

Then when you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling, it's so simple and most

importantly, free. It's free, Rob. When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great deals

on things you love. You can't help but say when it's eBay. It excludes vehicles and business

sellers.

Welcome to Scientific American Science Talk and the first of a series of special coronavirus episodes. This one posted on March 10th, 2020. I'm Steve Merski.

Wade Gibbs was a member of the board of editors and a senior writer at Scientific American from 1993 to 2006.

He's now a contributing editor, and he's in a unique position to bring us reporting and insights about the current coronavirus pandemic.

While at Scientific American, Gibbs wrote numerous articles that gave him experience highly relevant to the current

situation. In 1999, he wrote a piece titled Trailing a Virus. To research that article, he

traveled into the hot zone of the highly lethal NEPA virus outbreak in Malaysia. Like coronavirus,

that one also spread from bats to people.

He co-wrote the 2005 article preparing for a pandemic, the plan to fight a new flu, which has obvious relevance for our current situation.

That article is currently available free on our website.

He interviewed Bill Gates for a 2016 Q&A called Bill Gates views good data as key to global health.

That piece is also up on the website.

And Gibbs wrote the 2016 article, What Ails the Human Race, about a project called the Global Burden of Disease, which began a new chapter in epidemiological modeling.

That work originated at the University

of Washington Institute for Health Metrics in Seattle, where it continues to this day, and where Gibbs

plans to go for reporting for a future podcast. Which brings us to the second factor that makes

Gibbs's situation unique. In addition to being a science writer of great

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