Researcher believed killed by lab bacteria (Mega Bug Alert)

Reuters ^ | 5/3/2012 | Ronnie Cohen

[mojito]

A young research associate killed by a highly virulent strain of meningococcal disease is believed to have contracted the bacteria from the San Francisco lab where he was working on a vaccine against it, public health officials said on Thursday.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts are seeking to confirm what they already suspect: that Richard Din, 25, died Saturday in an unusual case of a scientist being fatally infected with an agent from his own laboratory.

[Lee N. Field]

Just in case you didn't have enough to worry about.

Earth Abides, from 1949. If you've never read it, do.

Earth Abides begins in the United States during the 1940s, set largely in the Berkeley, California area, within sight of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge. Most of the Earth's population has perished from a virulent airborne disease. Isherwood "Ish" Williams, who had been temporarily living in a solitary California mountain cabin, is one of the survivors of the pandemic. He emerges from his scientific studies in the mountains to find his entire world barren of people. Isherwood explores the empty world and then settles down with a handful of survivors to begin the process of restoring the human race and civilization.