MicrobeWorld

China said it was mobilizing resources nationwide to combat a new strain of deadly bird flu that has killed four people, as Japan and Hong Kong stepped up vigilance against the virus and Vietnam banned imports of Chinese poultry.

The H7N9 bird flu strain does not appear to be transmitted fro... Read More

Two former Canadian Food Inspection Agency researchers face charges for trying to take 17 vials of pathogens out of the country.

Klaus Nielsen, a world-leading researcher in brucella infection, and fellow researcher Wei Ling Yu have been charged with breach of trust by a public officer after ... Read More

Once upon a time, not too terribly long ago, getting the chicken pox was practically a rite of passage for kids.

But now, nearly 20 years after approval of a vaccine for the varicella virus, which causes the itchy illness, chicken pox is a rarity. A new study conducted by researchers at Kaise... Read More

Parasites pose a problem for the semantically-oriented microbiologist. There is no question that unicellular parasites such as Giardia, Plasmodium, or Toxoplasma are microbes, thus we can appropriate them with impunity. But what about parasitic worms? They are clearly not microscopic* and are ta... Read More

What is the influenza A(H7N9) virus?

Influenza A H7 viruses are a group of influenza viruses that normally circulate among birds. The influenza A(H7N9) virus is one subgroup among the larger group of H7 viruses. Although some H7 viruses (H7N2, H7N3 and H7N7) have occasionally been found to in... Read More

On 3 April 2013, the China Health and Family Planning Commission notified WHO of an additional four cases of human infection with influenza A(H7N9). The four patients are from Jiangsu province in eastern China. There is no link between the cases.

The patients include a 45-year-old woman with ... Read More

Scientists' preliminary assessment of the Chinese bird flu strain that has killed three people in China show that the virus can spread through poultry without showing any symptoms while seriously sickening humans.

Based on preliminary study of the genetic data and Chinese lab testing, the H7... Read More

University of British Columbia researchers have discovered two new symbionts living in the gut of termites, and taken the unusual step of naming them after fictional monsters created by American horror author HP Lovecraft.

The single-cell protists, Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla micro... Read More

Scientist at the Rensselaer Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies and the Rensselaer Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for the Directed Assembly of Nanostructures have created a coating that can selectively kill the bacteria Listeria, a causative agent of food borne illne... Read More

Glowing bacteria inside squids use light and chemical signals to control circadian-like rhythms in the animals, according to a study to be published on April 2 in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, houses... Read More

Call it hollow-hearted. Researchers have built a mimic of the outer capsule of the foot-and-mouth disease virus. Inside, where the virus' genetic material normally lives, is empty. Such synthetic virus-like particles could go into a foot-and-mouth vaccine that's cheaper to make because it doesn'... Read More

Biology and nanotechnology are moving ever closer together. Ars recently wrote about the use of nanoparticles to aid delivery of stem cells in cardiac therapy. Now, Swiss researchers have developed nanoparticles that can detect, and one day could combat, viruses.

When viruses enter the human ... Read More

Using the same strategy that a common virus employs to evade the human immune system, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine have modified adult stem cells to increase their survival -- with the goal of giving the cells time to exert their natural... Read More

The recent news about a baby in Mississippi and 14 French adults said to have been "cured" of HIV infection has fueled excitement that the end of HIV/AIDS could be within sight. Both situations raise more questions than they currently answer.

Although no one can say we now have "the" cure for... Read More

An alternative treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections that are raising concern nationwide already exists. But there's a big problem. The treatment is not approved for use in the United States.

And it could be a decade or more for the treatment, long used in Russia, former Soviet nation... Read More

The squid has fascinated microbiologists for years because of its harmonious relationship with just one bacteria -- Vibrio fischeri. The bacteria does not express light when it is freely roaming in the ocean, but when housed in the squid's light organ (located in its underbelly) it will work wit... Read More

Researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and the Forsyth Institute published a study today that found that a significant proportion of dental bib clips harbored bacteria from the patient, dental clinician and the environment even after the clips had undergone standard disinfecti... Read More

Glowing bacteria inside squids use light and chemical signals to control circadian-like rhythms in the animals, according to a study to be published on April 2 in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, houses... Read More

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are developing a medical instrument that will be able to quickly detect a suite of biothreat agents, including anthrax, ricin, botulinum, shiga and SEB toxin.

The device, once developed, approved by the Food and Drug Administration and commercialize... Read More

A growing body of evidence suggests that all the antibacterial-wiping, germ-killing cleanliness of the developed world may actually be making us more prone to getting sick — and that a little more dirt might help us stay healthier in the long run.

The idea, known as the hygiene hypothesis, wa... Read More