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The last two years have witnessed an unprecedented global expansion of avian influenza. Moving along migratory bird flyways into Europe and the Americas, a new strain of H5N1 influenza has established itself in wild birds and domestic poultry, leading to a record 58.6 million birds culled in the U.S. and new outbreaks across Latin America and the Caribbean. This strain’s spread in birds, along with infections of mammals and sporadic human cases—one fatal—raises pandemic influenza concerns. (Daniel Schar, Erik Karlsson and Filip Claes, 4/6)

In less than two years, the US could face a shortage of up to 450,000 nurses. The health-care system won’t be able to fill this gap with half the potential workforce on the sidelines: More must be done to recruit men into nursing. (4/6)

How long a person can expect to live is one of the most fundamentally revealing facts about a country, and here, in the richest country in the world, the answer is not just bleak but increasingly so. Americans are now dying younger on average than they used to, breaking from all global and historical patterns of predictable improvement. (David Wallace-Wells, 4/6)

Imagine a medical therapy that reduces your risk of stroke and heart disease by 27 percent. It cuts your chance of developing cancer by 12 percent. And it decreases your overall risk of premature death by 31 percent. (Leana S. Wen, 4/6)

The decision by a federal judge in Texas to strike down a provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring free access to preventive health care for millions of Americans is a shocking act of health vandalism. It takes the nation in the wrong direction at the wrong time. (Noubar Afeyan, 4/7)

There are just days left for Maryland to make history by passing a bill that offers health care to immigrant Marylanders. Over the past decade, Maryland has been a leader in reducing the state’s uninsured rate, thanks to bold policies that prioritize health equity. (Gustavo Torres, Willie Flowers and Jaime Contreras, 4/6)

As scientists gain increasing dexterity in manipulating the basic elements of life, they are designing not only other synthetic vaccines, but also therapies for cancer, benign alternatives to fossil fuels, and even novel approaches to protecting endangered species. Some of these efforts will succeed, and some surely will fail. But it is hardly hype to call what is happening in labs around the world a revolution in biology. (Michael Specter, 4/6)