MicrobeWorld

After receptor binding and internalization during influenza virus entry, the hemagglutinin (HA) protein is triggered by low pH to undergo irreversible conformational changes that mediate membrane fusion. To investigate how mutations that alter the activation pH of the HA protein influence the fi... Read More

A new federal report blames a combination of problems for a mysterious and dramatic disappearance of U.S. honeybees since 2006.

The intertwined factors cited include a parasitic mite, multiple viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition, genetics, habitat loss and pesticides.

The multiple causes mak... Read More

Scientists have cracked a 35-year-old mystery about the workings of the natural motors that are serving as models for development of a futuristic genre of synthetic nanomotors that pump therapeutic DNA, RNA or drugs into individual diseased cells. Their report revealing the innermost mechanisms ... Read More

Certain Streptococci increase their production of toxic shock syndrome toxin 1, sometimes to potentially dangerous levels, when aerobic bacteria are present in the vagina. But scientists from the University of Western Ontario have discovered certain strains of lactobacillus bacteria are capable ... Read More

White-nose syndrome has invaded Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge, home to more than 1 million endangered gray bats and other vulnerable species.

The world's largest wintering colony of gray bats may be under attack from white-nose syndrome, federal wildlife authorities reported Monday, pote... Read More

In the celebrated novel The Rebel Angels, the famed Canadian author Robertson Davies mentions Ozias Froats, a fictional professor potentially on his way to a Nobel Prize for discovering that everyone’s feces reflect the maker’s personality. He did not have today’s ready recourse to metagenomics ... Read More

Fat worms confirm that researchers from Michigan State University have successfully engineered a plant with oily leaves ­– a feat that could enhance biofuel production as well as lead to improved animal feeds.

The results, published in the current issue of The Plant Cell, the journal of the ... Read More

Although the flu appears to be leveling off in the East, South and Midwest, numbers are still rising in the Southwest and Northwest, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

The flu is widespread now in Washington state, said Donn Moyer of the Washington State Department of He... Read More

It's a chemical that's been in U.S. households for more than 40 years, from the body wash in your bathroom shower to the knives on your kitchen counter to the bedding in your baby's basinet.

But federal health regulators are just now deciding whether triclosan — the germ-killing ingredient fo... Read More

In a recent study published in PNAS, Houry and collaborators used time-lapse microscopy to monitor the biofilms formed by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis and noted that a small subset (0.1 to 1%) of all the cells in the biofilm were motile. The rest of the cells were sessile and immobile ex... Read More

Nearly 6% of lung cancer tissue samples from non-smokers show signs that HPV may have triggered the tumors. A common virus known to cause cervical and head and neck cancers may also trigger some cases of lung cancer, according to new research presented by Fox Chase Cancer Center at the AACR Ann... Read More

The microbial population in the air of the New York City subway system is nearly identical to that of ambient air on the city streets. This research, published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, establishes an important baseline, should it become necessary to m... Read More

There’s no question that variation in size and shape has conferred selective advantages over the course of evolutionary time. One of the most obvious examples is the long neck and legs of the giraffe, which allow it to snatch foliage that is unreachable by vertically challenged competitors. The ... Read More

BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh explains how British scientists have used a new technique to develop a synthetic virus which heralds a major development in vaccines.

Click "source" to view video. Read More

Two studies of malnourished children offer the first major new scientific findings in a decade about the causes and treatment of severe malnutrition, which affects more than 20 million children around the world and contributes to the deaths of more than a million a year. Merely giving children a... Read More

UCLA infectious disease expert Anne Rimoin talks about the alarming recent rise in monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Read More

In its native state, according to the CDC, the H5N1 flu virus is highly contagious and is especially deadly to birds. Fortunately, few people have contracted this strain of flu as it's quite deadly in people as well. Luckily, there have been very few cases of transmission of the virus between pe... Read More

A synthetic version of the Schmallenberg virus has been made in the laboratory by Scottish scientists. The research raises hopes for developing a vaccine for the livestock disease, which causes lambs and calves to be stillborn. Schmallenberg virus (SBV) was discovered little more than a year ago... Read More

A large-scale study of a biomedical intervention that potentially offers novel options for women to protect themselves from HIV infection has, to the surprise of many researchers, failed. But the results say more about the participants’ behavior than the effectiveness of the products being teste... Read More

Efavirenz (tradenames: Sustiva, Stocrin) is an antiretroviral (ARV) drug commonly used to treat HIV. Its popularity as a medication, alone or more commonly in combination with other HIV medications (tradename: Atripla), is due to its superior effectiveness in suppressing replication of the virus... Read More