Our picksThe next plague is coming; cyber warfare & nuclear attack; fooling DNA testing, and more

The next plague is coming. Is America ready? (Ed Yong, The Atlantic)
The epidemics of the early 21st century revealed a world unprepared, even as the risks continue to multiply. Much worse is coming.

Deadly Chinese poultry flu could be ‘disease X’ that sparks worldwide pandemic (Anne Gulland, Telegraph)
A new strain of bird flu – H7N9 — which kills 38 per cent of those it infects has been identified by the deputy chief medical officer for England as the most likely candidate to spark a worldwide flu pandemic.

The ethics of separating families at the border (Carrie Cordero, Lawfare)
I have been thinking a lot lately about the reports that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have been forcibly removing children from their parents who have illegally crossed the border and been apprehended by authorities or who crossed the border and requested asylum. In the abstract, the practice sounds bad enough; the details are even more horrible. Liz Goodwin of the Boston Globe reports that, according to a federal public defender in McAllen, Tex., CBP agents have told mothers that their children were being taken away because agents were “going to give them a bath.” The children did not return but, instead, have entered an unaccountable system of government detention or relocation. If you don’t know the terrible history of this particular line of deceit, look it up.

Bolt out of the blue: Nuclear attack warning in the era of information and cyber warfare (Frank Nuño and Vaughn Standley, War on the Rocks)
The objective of a surprise attack is to stun the opponent long enough to prevent an effective defense and diminish any attempted counterstrike. History has shown how the very act of being caught off-guard is interpreted as evidence of failure in a fully functional alerting system, leading to doubt and delay. Today, a modern nuclear weapon can deliver more destructive energy than all the bombs dropped in World War II. An intercontinental missile can unleash this destruction anywhere in the world in less than 30 minutes. Add simultaneous information and cyber warfare and you’ve got the modern Bolt-out-of-the-Blue. The astonishment of lightning from a clear blue sky is an apt comparison to a surprise attack because it is as much about confusion as it is about surprise. The clouds from which the bolt emanates are visible only with hindsight. So extreme is the surprise nuclear first strike scenario, it was not acknowledged publicly in past Nuclear Posture Reviews.

Another DNA testing company reportedly gets fooled by dog DNA (Ed Cara, Gizmodo)
Consumer DNA testing is going to the dogs. A Canadian testing company has been accused of sending back supposedly human ancestry results on a faux sample that actually came from a chihuahua named Snoopy, CBC News reported Wednesday. Remarkably, it’s the second company reported to have been fooled by doggy DNA in recent months, but the full story behind the sting is even weirder.

2014 Napa earthquake may be linked to groundwater changes, study says (AP)
Research suggests the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that rocked California wine country in 2014 may have been caused by an expansion of Earth’s crust because of seasonally receding groundwater under the Napa and Sonoma valleys. The vineyard-filled valleys flank the West Napa Fault, which produced the quake that killed one person, injured several hundred and caused more than $500 million in losses.

Underwater fiber-optic cables could moonlight as earthquake sensors (Maria Temming, Science News)
The seafloor cables that ferry internet traffic across oceans could be used to collect data

Neo-Nazis can be deradicalized and make amends (Brad Galloway and Evan Balgord, Vice)
Not all racists can be rehabilitated. But some can and here’s some ways we can do that.

Antarctica has lost nearly 3 trillion tons of ice since 1992 (Andrew Freedman, Axios)
Antarctica is shedding ice at an increasing rate, raising global sea levels and threatening coastal cities, according to a new international assessment published in the journal Nature. Why this matters:The safety of coastal populations, including growing megacities worldwide, is intricately tied to the fate of Antarctica’s ice sheet. Until a few years ago, Antarctica was assumed to be far more stable than the Greenland Ice Sheet, but that is no longer the case. The faster and more significantly that Antarctica melts due to global warming, the higher that seas will rise. This means more damaging storm surges and so-called “sunny day” flooding during ordinary high tides. Such flooding is already happening along the U.S. East Coast. If all of Antarctica were to melt, the study says, it would raise global sea levels by a catastrophic 58 meters, or 190 feet. Luckily, no study is projecting this will happen, at least not anytime soon.