MicrobeWorld

So far there have only been isolated cases of bird flu in humans, and no widespread transmission as the H5N1 virus can’t replicate efficiently in the nose. The new study, using weakened viruses in the lab, supports the conclusions of controversial research published in 2012 which demonstrated th... Read More

This episode: A virus has borrowed a bacterium's defenses to infect better!

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Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Read More

Jane Lanhee Lee reports on a new spate of bird flu cases in China that has alarmed citizens grappling with earlier livestock-related health scares and reticent authorities.

(Click source to watch) Read More

Chinese authorities slaughtered over 20,000 birds at a poultry market in Shanghai on Friday as the death toll from a new strain of bird flu mounted to six, spreading concern overseas and sparking a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong.

The local government in Shanghai said th... Read More

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have developed a model of infection in rhesus macaques that will help scientists around the world better understand how an emerging coronavirus, first identified in September 2012, affects people. The virus has so far infected at least 17 people in... Read More

Thousands of women suffer from overactive bladder (OAB) or the sudden need to urinate, yet many don’t get relief from medication. Researchers at Loyola University Health System believe certain bacteria may be to blame.

Loyola has launched a clinical trial to determine if the bacteria present ... Read More

Viruses have historically been classified into one of two types – those with an outer lipid-containing envelope and those without an envelope. For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered that hepatitis A virus, a common cause of enterically-transmitted hep... Read More

THE WORLD witnessed only 223 polio cases last year, the lowest level in history and an impressive advance from the hundreds of thousands of children afflicted as recently as the 1980s. However, the eradication quest is not over, and the next steps look difficult. The Global Polio Eradication Ini... Read More

Seeing the mosquito-transmitted chikungunya virus pathogen at very high resolution while it’s bound to antibodies could lead to vaccines for the disease. The infection causes symptoms similar to dengue fever, followed by a prolonged disease that affects the joints and causes severe arthritis. In... Read More

A new study which was performed jointly at Umeå university and the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, discovered that bacteria can degrade the cell membrane of bacterial competitors with enzymes that do not harm their own membrane. This exciting finding opens the way for the development o... Read More

Microbiologist parents of newborns or expecting microbiologists now have a way to indoctrinate their wee little ones with an exciting new book for infants entitled "Baby's First Microbiology Book." Help baby learn about all the important little creatures! The pictures are: a microscope, bacteria... Read More

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