Unlike at the end of the first world war, there is now a global disease-surveillance system which would sound the alarm if H5N1 showed signs of being able to pass from person to person.

ECONOMIST: Averting a global plague | The

The Nuclear Threat Initiative supports a groundbreaking surveillance system in the Middle East, called the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance.

CNN: Gearing up for prevention: The Hajj meets H1N1

Researchers at the University of Iowa, studying the 2009 swine flu pandemic, compared fluctuations in the use of certain phrases on Twitter with flu cases reported through the US Centre for Disease Control, which has its own sophisticated flu surveillance system.

BBC: Can crowdsourcing beat the flu?

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey 2004, more than 70% of adult Milwaukeeans reported that they had had at least one alcoholic drink within the past 30 days--the highest percentage on our list.

FORBES: America's Drunkest Cities