MicrobeWorld

Alexander the Great is said to have used silver coins to purify water. The huge collection of impressionist art at the Barnes Foundation near Philadelphia was amassed with a fortune built on selling an antiseptic silver compound called Argyrol in the early 20th century.

But silver was largely... Read More

The health department has introduced two new vaccines which could prevent 2.5 million child deaths a year.

The vaccines were introduced in Pretoria on Thursday. The two vaccines, rotavirus and pentavalent, will reduce the number of child mortalities by 2.5 million per year," said Dr Ntombenhl... Read More

Reusable shopping bags are great for the environment, but we do have a word of caution.
If you're using those bags when you shop, that's great. Just make sure you wash them from time to time.

Researchers recently did an experiment in Idaho. For two weeks, they did their shopping with four re... Read More

Blaming it on the economy, local health experts from the Chicago area say the number of neglected swimming pools is on the rise, creating a haven for mosquitoes that can transmit West Nile virus.

"The number of desolate pools in Lake County has doubled in just a few years, said George Balis o... Read More

Can hogs catch swine flu from humans? An isolated case of the pandemic H1N1 influenza has been confirmed in a Quebec hog herd. Pathologist Dr. Alain Laperle with Quebec's provincial agriculture, food and fisheries ministry (MAPAQ) claims that while the vector by which the disease came to the fa... Read More

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A new study in PLoS suggests that positive tests for Henipaviruses in African Straw-colored fruit bats in Ghana may indicate that one of the most pathogenic virus genera known in humans that is usually found in Australia and Asia may also be endemic in Africa.

PloS Abstract:

Henipaviruses... Read More

Mitochondrial diseases disrupt the power generating machinery within cells and increase a person's susceptibility to bacterial infection, particularly in the lungs or respiratory tract. A new study published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, shows that infection with the pneumonia causing bacteria... Read More

Mixed hyphae and yeasts - PAS stain Read More

A government panel has recommended that certain groups be placed at the front of the line for swine flu vaccinations this fall, including pregnant women, health care workers, and children six months and older. Read More

A new urine test developed with funding from the Wellcome Trust will allow doctors to diagnose chlamydia infection in men within the hour, improving the ability to successfully treat the infection on the spot and prevent re-transmission.

{flvremote}http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/c... Read More

Swine flu vaccine makers may rely on a U.S. emergency declaration to use experimental additives made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Novartis AG to boost a limited supply of shots that will be available to fight the pandemic.

The ingredients, known as adjuvants, may be added for the first time to... Read More

In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst supervised the evolution of a new strain that dramatically inc... Read More

The masterpieces that spring from the talents of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and other artists often begin with the creation of a gradient of colors on a palette. In a similar manner, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have created an innovative device called the “microflu... Read More

Many of the new techniques based on nanotechnology that have been developed for faster and more sensitive detection of pathogens fail in day-to-day clinical use because they require complex sample preparation or measurement equipment, or simply cannot keep up with the large sample throughput in ... Read More

Bacteria found in sweet gum wood may improve the preprocessing steps for cost-effective production of cellulosic ethanol.

JDR-2, a strain of the wood-decaying bacteria Paenibacillus, can break down and digest hemicelluloses, which in traditional cellulosic ethanol production is broken down by... Read More

Videographer/artist Polly Green from New Zealand self produced this mini documentary on Professional kayaker Dr. Jessie Stone and her work with Soft Power Health in hopes to educate and raise awareness of malaria in Uganda. Read More

Julie Bianchini talks about her research into understanding the functions of cysteine-rich secretory proteins, using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism.

Julie was advised by Dr. Andrew Vershon, Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in the Waksman Institute of Mi... Read More

Interview with Makio Iwashima, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology on the function of T cells in the immune system. This is a concise three-minute explanation with excellent visuals. Great for the classroom. Read More

Hundreds of Americans suspected of carrying H1N1 have been quarantined in China this summer. Here is a transcript from one American family between the mother and her daughter who was caught up in China's swine flu dragnet this summer. The authors are Sheryl Gay Stolberg, White House corresponden... Read More