A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" + δῆμος demos "people") is an epidemic of infectious disease that has spread through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic. Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu. Throughout history there have been a number of pandemics, such as smallpox and tuberculosis. More recent pandemics include the HIV pandemic and the H1N1 pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) produce a six-stage classification that describes the process by which a novel influenza virus moves from the first few infections in humans through to a pandemic. This starts with the virus mostly infecting animals, with a few cases where animals infect people, then moves through the stage where the virus begins to spread directly between people, and ends with a pandemic when infections from the new virus have spread worldwide.

Morgan Ailis Webb (born October 5, 1978) is an American co-host and senior segment producer of the G4 show X-Play, and host of the show G4 Underground. She was previously the host of the podcast WebbAlert and a monthly columnist for the United States edition of FHM, where she contributed a monthly video game column titled "Tips from the Gaming Goddess".

Webb attended UC Berkeley from 1996 to 2000. She developed computer skills in her free time there, and after graduating from college, worked for a dot-com company as a website administrator. After the company went under during the dot-com bubble burst of 2000, her friend Catherine Schwartz got her hired at TechTV in 2001, and Webb became employed as the associate producer and web researcher for The Screen Savers. Throughout 2002 and 2003, she also regularly co-hosted TechTV's Call for Help with Chris Pirillo. In April 2003, Webb left The Screen Savers to co-host X-Play with Adam Sessler.

Webb is one of only six TechTV personalities, including Adam Sessler, Sarah Lane, Chi-Lan Lieu, Kevin Rose, and Brendan Moran, to survive the massive layoffs resulting from the May 2004 merger of G4 and TechTV. Only Sessler and Webb remained with the network after G4's change in format. After Sessler resigned in April 2012, Webb is now the only original TechTV personality remaining on the network.

Ed Brubaker is an Eisner Award-winning comic book writer and cartoonist. Brubaker's first early comics work was primarily in the crime fiction genre with works such as Lowlife, The Fall, Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives and Scene of the Crime. He later became known for writing superhero comics such as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Catwoman, Uncanny X-Men, and The Authority.

Brubaker’s first work in comics was as a cartoonist, writing and drawing Pajama Chronicles for Blackthorne Comics, Purgatory U.S.A. for Slave Labor Graphics, and the semi-autobiographical series Lowlife for Slave Labor and later Caliber Comics. At Caliber, he briefly edited the anthology series Monkey Wrench.

In 1991, he began contributing to the Dark Horse Comics anthology series Dark Horse Presents, a comic he would continue to contribute to intermittently throughout the decade. Among those contributions was the three part serial "An Accidental Death" (Dark Horse Presents #65–67), a collaboration with artist Eric Shanower, which garnered the two a 1993 Eisner Award nomination.

Robert Gifford is professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). His main research interests are environmental psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology. He has worked on nonverbal behavior and on climate change behavior barriers. Gifford is the author of 4 editions of Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice, which has also been translated into Japanese. Since 2002, he is editor in chief of the Journal of Environmental Psychology. Gifford also serves on the editorial boards of Architectural Science Review and Applied Psychology. In addition, he has served as President of the environmental divisions of the American Psychological Association, the International Association of Applied Psychology, and the Canadian Psychological Association.

Tom Vasel (born on September 8, 1976) is a well known podcaster and reviewer of board games. Vasel co-hosts a long-running and popular gaming podcast titled The Dice Tower, and as of 2011^[update] has posted over 1200 reviews on the internet database BoardGameGeek.

As of August 2003^[update], Vasel taught mathematics at the International Christian School in Uijeongbu. He assumed the role of Pastor of Uijongbu Baptist Church, succeeding Pastor Rick Kelley in March 2007. After leaving South Korea, he has worked as a teacher in Florida.

Since May 2005, Vasel has co-hosted The Dice Tower, a podcast about board games and wargames. Originally, Vasel represented players who prefer designer games, while Joe Steadman advocated for those who prefer wargames. Steadman left the show in May 2006 after the 50th episode. Vasel, hosting alone with occasional input from Sam Healey for a few shows, rearranged the format to include recorded segments by guest reviewers and players. Gradually Healey began to take a larger role and was eventually promoted to co-host. Healey has since left the show and been replaced by the show's voice-over man, Eric Summerer.