Speculation Into Darkness.

As part of my crippled USS Vengeance-like crash course into the workings of influenza viruses over the past nearly 6 weeks, I've been doing some reading. 

A Science Policy Forum article I'm skimming through tonight, from Lipsitch and colleagues in 2012, makes a nice comment: 

We contend that predictions about how particular influenza strains will behave in humans or, even more important, how they will evolve, remain highly speculative. 

While this was written with H5N1 as the subject, it is clearly applicable to H7N9. It nicely sums up my understanding on this late Friday evening as well! And who needs a colon anyway?