Grammys' top 5 moments

Sunday night's 55th annual Grammy Awards were as much about the performances as it was the actual statues handed out.

The evening saw some powerful collaborations among artists, and all eyes were on one controversial performer. Here are the top 5 moments of the night:

1) Killer performances

Take your pick. From a spirited performance of "The Weight" by an all-star group including Sir Elton John, T Bone Burnett, the Zac Brown Band, Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons and Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes, to the many duets like R&B crooner Miguel with Wiz Khalifa and Miranda Lambert with fellow country artist Dierks Bentley, it was all thrilling.

Fun. reminded us as to why we loved them when they performed "Carry On." But they won a big award of the night, song of the year, for their hit "We Are Young." And the stars in the audience were grooving along during a tribute to Bob Marley led by Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Sting, Ziggy and Damian Marley.Even Taylor Swift won us over when she took to the stage dressed as a ringmaster and surrounded by circus/carnival types to kick off the ceremony with her hit "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."

Grammy coverage on Marquee

But one of the most eagerly awaited performances was:

2) The return of Justin Timberlake to the stage

The Grammys went sepia-toned for Timberlake's performance of his new single "Suit and Tie," which offered plenty of homage to the Rat Pack era with Timberlake in a tux with a bow tie and a big band with similarly suited backup singers billed as "JT and the Tennessee Kids."

Jay-Z left his seat in the audience to run up on stage for his rap portion of the song. And Timberlake was cooler than cool as he segued into his new single "Pusher Love Girl." The performance marked the return of Timberlake to music since he took a four-year break to focus on acting.

Welcome home JT.

3) LL Cool J pulls triple duty

Sure, he's a big acting star now, but don't forget that LL, aka James Todd Smith, got his start in the hip hop game.

So it felt right when the Grammy host donned a knit cap, a black T-shirt and some subtle bling to perform alongside Chuck D, Travis Barker, Tom Morello and DJ Z-Trip. They closed out the show with "Welcome to the Terrordome" and shouted out the late Beastie Boy, Adam "MCA" Yauch, with a "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" chant.

He also kept the audience informed of what folks were saying on social media, reading tweets and responding to some. The Grammys got its monies worth with him.

4) Adele didn't wear black

You can't not love her as she sings like an angel, is hilarious and just seems so normal.

But just like you can always count on a practically flawless performance when she grabs the mic, we thought she was also a sure bet to show up in a black frock. It's kind of been like her thing.

But no. When Adele took to the stage to claim the first award of the night, best pop solo performance for "Set Fire to the Rain," she was wearing a flowery, red and black Valentino dress.

New life as a mom and clearly new fashion choices: It was almost as surprising as Prince showing up to present Gotye and Kimbra the record of the year award for "Somebody That I Used To Know.

5) The somewhat anticlimactic appearance of Chris Brown with Rihanna

Despite a few cutaways of the pair sitting together in the audience and Brown standing and clapping following her performance, seeing the two together was not as big a deal as the run up felt like it should be.

Friday marked the fourth anniversary of Brown's assault on Rihanna, which occurred before that year's Grammy ceremony.

The pair had been a huge focus of this year's Grammys as fans waited to see if they would arrive at the ceremony together and how much "togetherness" they would exhibit.

But in the end it felt like really no big deal.

More surprising was six-time nominee Frank Ocean not winning any of the big awards he was up for.

Ocean scored best urban contemporary album and shared best rap collaboration with Kanye West and Jay-Z for "No Church in the Wild," but lost best new artist to Fun. and album of the year to Mumford & Sons.

55th Grammy Awards: The winners list

It was also more fun checking to see which artists ignored the reported Grammys memo asking them to cover up (we are looking at you and your rather exposed bosom Katy Perry). Jennifer Lopez even joked about it while presenting.

"As you can see I read the memo," Lopez said, wearing a black dress cut extremely high and fully exposing one leg.

Controversial bird flu work resumes

Controversial research into making bird flu easier to spread in people is to resume after a year-long pause.

Some argue the research is essential for understanding how viruses spread and could be used to prevent deadly pandemics killing millions of people.

Research was stopped amid fierce debate including concerns about modified viruses escaping the laboratory or being used for terrorism.

The moratorium gave authorities time to fully assess the safety of the studies.

A type of bird flu known as H5N1 is deadly and has killed about half the people who have been infected.

It has not caused millions of deaths around the world because it lacks the ability to spread from one person to another. Cases tend to come from close contact with infected birds.

Scientists at the Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US discovered it would take between five and nine mutations in the virus' genetic code to allow it to start a deadly pandemic.

Dangerous science?

Their research was the beginning of a long-running furore involving scientists, governments and publishers of scientific research.

It is easy to see why designing a more dangerous version of H5N1 would raise concerns. A virus which can kill half of the people it infects and could spread rapidly from person to person is the stuff of Hollywood disaster movies.

However, the research could reveal important insights that could prevent such an infection arising in the wild and help build defences just in case.

The studies in ferrets showed that five to nine mutations were needed to get H5N1 spreading through the air from animal to animal.

This helps health officials tracking the virus as they can keep an eye out for danger signs in the virus' genetic code. Two of the mutations have been seen in the wild - but alone are not enough to set alarm bells ringing.

Getting an idea of what a highly infectious H5N1 virus would look like can also be used to help design effective vaccines and anti-viral medications.

This controversy is about balancing risks - do you study the virus with a remote chance of it getting out of the laboratory or do you avoid such research and miss out on discoveries which could save lives in the next pandemic?

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked academic journals not to publish key parts of the findings. It was concerned terrorists would use the details to develop a biological weapon.

It provoked outcry among some scientists who said their academic freedom was being restricted. Other scientists said the risk of the virus spreading was too great for such research to take place and described it as a folly.

The details were eventually published in the journals Nature and Science.

However, the academics involved agreed to a voluntary 60-day moratorium on research - which was later extended to more than a year.

It was to give governments time to review safety standards needed in laboratories to conduct research with enhanced viruses and whether they wanted to fund such research.

Back on

A letter signed by 40 virus researchers around the world, published in the journals Science and Nature, said the moratorium was being lifted.

It said appropriate conditions had been set in most of the world and their studies were "essential for pandemic preparedness".

One of the leading proponents of the research Prof Ron Fouchier, from the Erasmus Medical Centre, told the BBC it had been "frustrating" to shut down research for the year.

"This research is urgent, while we are having this pause bird flu virus continues to evolve in nature and we need to continue this research.

"We cannot wait for another year or two years."

He expects to restart his laboratory's work within the next couple of weeks.

However, it is a different case for many of the other research groups involved. The US has not decided on the conditions that it will allow the experiments to take place and the same applies to US-funded research taking place in other countries.

The decision has continued debate on whether the research should take place at all.

Prof Robert May, from the University of Oxford and a former president of The Royal Society, said: "These are not bad people, they are good people with good intentions, but they look through rose-coloured glasses at the security of the laboratories."

He said past history suggests "it will get out" as there had been more than a thousand cases of people being infected in labs with the highest standards and the 1977 outbreak of flu may have been connected to a Russian facility.

"That's why I feel the world is a safer place if we maintain this moratorium."