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President Bush has announced his emergency plan for "Pandemic Influenza Preparations and Response" -- with a price tag of $7.1 billion. Having learned a lesson from Hurricane Katrina, where spot-on predictive scientific models of bursting levees and disastrous flooding were ignored, the White House -- to its credit -- now takes the threat of a global influenza pandemic quite seriously. But exactly how good is epidemic prediction? Worth a $7 billion bet?

Softball injury prevention strategies, such as the use of lower-profile bases and teaching better sliding techniques, are not sufficiently scientifically supported, according to new research data from the Johns ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Center for Injury Research and Policy and the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.

As the threat of a potential influenza pandemic looms, researchers from the Johns ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, believe that a 1960s traffic safety model can be a useful tool for preparing for a potential outbreak.

Two liquids—oil and alcohol—contribute to road fatalities, according to researchers from the Johns ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, University of California at Irvine and the Global Forum for Health Research, in Geneva, Switzerland.