This link from Jeff VanderMeer's blog. The first inklings that the avian flu is spreading.

Yes, I understand that Gaia was an hypothesis only (no, it's apparently worked up to theory status) and the timeline is a bit longish, and prophets of doom are a dime a dozen. I know that there is no evidence that avian flu has mutated to a human:human transmission type. Yet.

I just wonder sometimes, what if? What if this is the time when things change, irrevocably and forever? What if this is the time when we learn how fragile it all is, and how powerless we really are?

Yeah, I know--late night melodramatics.

'night.