Health officials reported four more cases of a dangerous new virus in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Three of the patients diagnosed as having the novel coronavirus, or nCoV, are still being treated, a statement on the Saudi Health Ministry website said. The fourth has been discharged from a hospital. Experts: New SARS-like ...

Medical implants like catheters and pacemakers can be a hotspot for bacteria, which grow in hard-to-treat films on the surface of such devices. Scientists and engineers are taking different approaches to changing the surface of implants so bacteria can’t take hold. For example, some groups are developing polymer films with ...

Infants' early growth is influenced by the types of bacteria in their digestive system, a new study says. A variety of bacteria quickly populate the sterile digestive tract of a newborn. Norwegian researchers identified connections between specific types of bacteria and infant growth rates. For their study, published May 9 in the ...

A groundbreaking study from a well-renowned team of Danish researchers could bring unprecedented relief for sufferers of chronic back pain. According to the study, which appeared in the European Spine Journal, as much as 40 percent of chronic lower back pain is caused by bacteria. Treating these patients with antibiotics has ...

It's easy to forget just how far medicine has progressed. While we may worry about the spread of infectious diseases like avian flu or meningitis today, those pathogens have nothing on fearsome pandemics in the distant past like the Plague of Justinian, which killed over 100 million people from the ...

Scientists at a local laboratory say a new piece of technology there can identify bacteria a day earlier than traditional methods. "If it's a blood infection or meningitis, getting that identification as fast as we can can mean the difference between life and death," said Karen Calvert, a microbiologist who works ...

Bacteria on a surface wander around and often organize into highly resilient communities known as biofilms. It turns out that they organize in a rich-get-richer pattern similar to the distribution of wealth in the U.S. economy, according to a new study by researchers at University of California, Los Angeles, Northwestern ...

Women suffering from recurring urinary tract infections may carry a particularly hearty strain of E. coli bacteria that flourishes in both the gut and the bladder, and can migrate back and forth despite repeated treatments, a small new study finds. Doctors believe that urinary tract infections are often caused by E. ...

That word "microbiome" — describing the collection of bacteria that live in and on our bodies — keeps popping up. This time, researchers say that children whose parents clean their pacifiers by sucking them might be less likely to develop allergic conditions because of how their parents' saliva changes their ...

(via Wired's Superbug blog) In my last post 36 hours ago, I raised questions about Saudi Arabia’s apparent delay in reporting new cases of the novel coronavirus that has been causing low-level unease since last summer. (For the full history of that, check these posts.) So it’s only fair to ...

Spring cleaning is always a good way to get rid of those hard-to-reach cobwebs that appear around the house. However, when they appear in cooling tanks for spent nuclear fuel and have never been seen there before, special attention is warranted. Sometime in Fiscal Year 2011, “cobwebs” of bacteria were first ...

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 make it harder to do something about what’s called colony collapse ...

Chinese scientists are being criticized for their “appalling irresponsibility” after they intentionally developed a new mutant influenza strain in a veterinary laboratory, the Independent reported. Experts have warned that the new virus strains could potentially escape the lab, which could cause a global pandemic and lead to the deaths of ...

Early earth had a distinctive aroma. And it wasn't very nice. That's what scientists have now determined, using advanced imaging techniques to examine fossils nearly 1.9 billion years old that were collected from rocks around Lake Superior, Canada. Their work has revealed spherical and rod-shaped bacteria dining on the cylindrical outer ...

German scientists say fluoride reduces the ability of decay-causing bacteria to stick to teeth so it is easier to wash away when brushing or with saliva. Karin Jacobs and colleagues said despite a half-century of scientific research, controversy exists over exactly how fluoride compounds reduced the risk of tooth decay. Previous research ...

Of all the things that could be hazardous to your health, would you believe breathing oxygen makes the list? Our bodies produce toxic chemicals in our cells, called oxidants, which we fight naturally and with foods that contain antioxidants like blueberries and dark chocolate. All forms of life that breathe oxygen ...

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 found in ...

They sweep. They swab. They sterilize. And still the germs persist. In U.S. hospitals, an estimated 1 in 20 patients pick up infections they didn't have when they arrived, some caused by dangerous 'superbugs' that are hard to treat. The rise of these superbugs, along with increased pressure from the government and ...

A protein known to be a key player in the development of Parkinson's disease is able to enter and harm cells in the same way that viruses do, according to a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study. The protein is called alpha-synuclein. The study shows how, once inside a ...

Bacteria are all over us, inside and out. Jiri Hulcr recently found 1,458 species of bacteria "new to science" in a small sample of human belly buttons. What we know about our little passengers and how they affect our bodies is dwarfed by what we do not. That can be ...

Pancreatic cancer is a dreadful disease. Even in rich countries, only about 4% of those diagnosed with it are still alive after five years. In America it is the third-most-common cause of cancer deaths among women, after lung and breast cancer; among men it is fourth, after lung, prostate and ...

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 ...

There’s been a recent surge in cases of the avian influenza A (H7N9) viral infection in China. As of this morning, there have been over a hundred reported cases and more than twenty deaths. The virus’ relatively sudden appearance in April, usually considered the end of flu season in the ...

A vaccine created to treat a gut bacteria common in children with autism could also help control some symptoms of the neural development disorder, according to new research published in this month’s edition of the journal Vaccine. Researchers Brittany Pequegnat and Mario Monteiro of the University of Guelph in Ontario reportedly ...

Kal Penn has a pretty unusual resume: He has starred in Harold and Kumar, the most successful series of stoner movies made in the past decade; and has served in the White House as the Obama administration's liaison to youth. Now he's hosting a new show, The Big Brain Theory, ...

The H7N9 strain of avian influenza is more lethal than the coronavirus that caused the global SARS outbreak in 2003, a National Taiwan University Hospital doctor said. Citing a University of Hong Kong report, Huang Li-min, head of the hospital’s Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, said the H7N9 virus can develop ...

Researchers have confirmed that the A H7N9 bird flu virus, which began in February 2013, was transmitted from chickens at a wet poultry market to humans, according to a new study published in the The Lancet. Wet markets, which are common in Asian countries, are live animal markets. A H7N9 avian influenza ...

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 that causes AIDS. Though highly effective, a ...

It was a brew to rival any in “Macbeth.” The main ingredients were rat brain and a fearsome, carefully cultivated virus. In his laboratory in Pearl River, N.Y., 20 miles north of Manhattan, Dr. Hilary Koprowski macerated the ingredients in an ordinary kitchen blender one January day in 1948. He poured ...

Clemson University researchers found that beer pong balls may carry dangerous bacteria, The Associated Press reported. The balls collected by student researchers from parties over one weekend found salmonella, listeria, E. coli and staph, according to the AP. The study found a high level of bacteria transferred to the beer when ...

When a new disease emerges, scientists and physicians hope something that’s already in the medicine cabinet can be used to treat it. A new study suggests for the novel coronavirus, that may be the case. Scientists from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are reporting that a combination of ...

The number of confirmed H7N9 bird flu cases in China increased by four to 91 on Friday. Jiangsu province reported one new case, and Zhejiang province reported three, the state-run Shanghai Daily reported today. The number of dead was unchanged at 17. An increasing focus among public health officials ...

Those who take part in clinical trials often have to do nasty things, from taking new drugs to forgoing sleep. Participants in a trial organised by Stanley Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, had a decidedly easier task: eating steak. After reading Dr Hazen’s conclusions, though, they may be ...

Intestinal dysbiosis may play a role in gastrointestinal (GI) disorders such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in children, and prebiotics and probiotics may be efficacious for treating these conditions, according to Philip M. Sherman, MD, professor of pediatrics, microbiology and dentistry at the Hospital for Sick ...

A modified strain of Salmonella could be used to efficiently deliver antigens, the key ingredients of vaccines, into human cells, a study suggests. Salmonella bacteria use nanoscopic needles to inject their own proteins into host cells, enabling them to survive and replicate inside those cells. In the latest study, published in ...

Doctors say the discovery of a 4-year-old carrier of the H7N9 bird flu virus who shows no symptoms of the potentially lethal virus is a worrying development that could make the spread of the infection more difficult to monitor. The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau said the boy was detected from a ...

Health officials say they still don't understand how a lesser-known bird flu virus was able to kill two men and seriously sicken a woman in China, but that it's unlikely that it can spread easily among humans. Two men in Shanghai became the first known human fatalities from the H7N9 bird ...

n late November, a strange envelope turned up at the Canadian embassy in Lebanon. Its suspicious contents — wood shavings, according to local reports — sparked alarm: did it contain dangerous pathogens? Could this be a bioterrorist attack? The building was closed until the package could be investigated. In snowy Winnipeg, ...

Single-celled archaea are invisible to the naked eye, and even when using a microscope, great care must be taken to observe them. An international team of researchers led by the Center for Geomicrobiology, Aarhus University, Denmark, has nevertheless succeeded in retrieving four archaeal cells from seabed mud and mapping the ...

The latter half of the 19th century was a critical period in the development of Western, or what is now complimentarily called modern, medicine. The famed chemist Louis Pasteur and the physician Robert Koch established on a firm intellectual foundation the notion that the cause of infectious diseases often lay ...

Scientists at the University of Texas and the University of Iowa have created a synthetic bacteria that grows thanks to one of humankind's favorite stimulants — caffeine. According to a report from Quartz, this bacteria can be added to any caffeinated beverage and it'll grow according to the levels of ...

Adorning your living room mantel with a petri dish full of germs normally wouldn’t sound appealing. But once you take a look at Zachary Copfer’s unique creations, you might be intrigued — if you’re not already running to the bathroom to wash your hands. Copfer is a Cincinnati-based microbiologist-turned-artist who figured ...

Using stripped-down versions of living cells, researchers have confirmed which proteins allow certain bacteria to breathe iron and other metals when oxygen isn't available. Shewanella oneidensis (pictured) is often found in oxygenated environments but can also thrive without the gas if it must, thanks to energy-generating chemical reactions that ...

Fresh fruit and vegetables carry an abundance of bacteria on their surfaces, not all of which cause disease. In the first study to assess the variety of these non-pathogenic bacteria, scientists report that these surface bacteria vary depending on the type of produce and cultivation practices. The results are published March ...

Bacteria that live in the gut change after gastric-bypass surgery, and may aid in weight loss, according to a Harvard University study. Researchers gave mice the stomach-shrinking surgery and monitored changes in the gut’s bacterial inhabitants, according to a study in the journal Science Translational Medicine. When bacteria from the mice ...

A Kansas State University-led team is researching ways to stop the spread of norovirus, a contagious stomach illness that infects one in 15 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kyeong-Ok Chang, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, is leading researchers as they develop an ...

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 of dampening production of that toxin according to research ...

A prototype medical dressing that 'lights up' when dangerous bacteria are present has been developed at the University of Bath. The invention means that life-threatening infections in child burn victims could in future be detected with nothing more than a UV light. The dressing contains nanocapsules filled with fluorescent dye -- ...

The bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens is a constant companion of some roundworms. These worms assault insect larvae, thereby infecting them with the bacteria; the pathogens then attack the cells of their victims with a deadly cocktail of various toxins. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund working ...

(from National Geographic) In this 6th interview with renowned wildlife biologist Dr. Michael Hutchins, we discuss the challenges facing vanishing species and other threatened free-ranging and captive populations of wildlife due to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Jordan: Zoonoses and anthroponoses may be confusing terms to some of our readers. Can ...

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a new chemical class of compounds that have the potential to block genetically diverse viruses from replicating. The findings, published in Chemistry & Biology, could allow for the development of broad-spectrum antiviral medications to treat a number of viruses, including ...

As the invisible bugs in hospitals get scarier and more prevalent, hospitals are finding new ways to clean. Doylestown Hospital on Tuesday unveiled its newest high-tech weapon, a machine that zaps everything in a room with ultraviolet light 25,000 times brighter than the sun's. It can penetrate the defenses of Clostridium ...

Every day it seems like some new discovery is revealed ab0ut the microbial life on our bodies, in our bodies and around our homes. The tendency in writing about such studies is to make sweeping conclusions about what is and is not and, of course, how we should live and ...

When things don't go as planned in Chris Nomura's science world, they sometimes turn out for the better. Nomura, an assistant professor in the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry's Department of Chemistry, and his team of researchers are using a synthetic protein molecule to disrupt the way bacteria become ...

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 of dampening production of that toxin according to research ...

A tiny molecular machine used by bacteria to kill attacking viruses could change the way that scientists edit the DNA of plants, animals and fungi, revolutionizing genetic engineering. The protein, called Cas9, is quite simply a way to more accurately cut a piece of DNA. “This could significantly accelerate the rate ...

IF YOU'RE reading this article, antibiotics have probably saved your life – and not once but several times. A rotten tooth, a knee operation, a brush with pneumonia; any number of minor infections that never turned nasty. You may not even remember taking the pills, so unremarkable have these one-time ...

The drug-resistant bac­te­ria known as MRSA, once con­fined to hos­pi­tals but now wide­spread in com­mu­ni­ties, will likely con­tinue to exist in both set­tings as sep­a­rate strains, accord­ing to a new study. The pre­dic­tion that both strains will coex­ist is reas­sur­ing because pre­vi­ous pro­jec­tions indi­cated that the more inva­sive and fast-growing com­mu­nity ...

As anyone who’s seen a yogurt commercial knows, our guts are teeming with bacteria. So, too, are our hands, feet, ears, and mouths. But our brains? Until recently, scientists would have said no way. The brain was long thought to be a kind of fortress, separated from the body by a virtually ...

Daily supplements of a fermented milk product containing five different probiotic strains may affect the parts of the brain linked to emotion and sensation, says a new study from UCLA and Danone. The study is said to be the first to show chronic intake of a fermented milk product with probiotics ...

Simon Fraser University virologist Masahiro Niikura and his doctoral student Nicole Bance are among an international group of scientists that has discovered a new class of molecular compounds capable of killing the influenza virus. Working on the premise that too much of a good thing can be a killer, the scientists ...

At the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, patients are treated for all kinds of bacterial infections with viruses called phages. In most places in the world antibiotics are given for these infections. One patient says he regularly uses phages to treat a recurring eye infection. "I've tried everything. I've even had operations ...

You’ve heard of Sputnik, that little tiny antenna-clad chunk of metal heaved into low orbit on October 4, 1957, effectively kicking off the Space Age? Well, make way for Gutnik. A news release issued by NASA’s Ames Research Center foretells the launch into space of a satellite inhabited by a bunch ...

A research team at central Taiwan's Hungkuang University, has succeeded in finding four strains of lactic acid bacteria that may be effective in treating fatty liver, a condition that affects people who are obese or drink a lot of alcohol, the team leader said Friday. Researchers sorted out the functional lactic ...

Treating people with HIV rapidly after they have become infected with the virus that causes Aids may be enough to achieve a "functional cure" in a small proportion of patients diagnosed early, according to research. Scientists in France who followed 14 patients who were treated swiftly with HIV drugs but then ...

A potentially lethal fungal infection appears to gain virulence by being able to anticipate and disarm a hostile immune attack in the lungs, according to findings by researchers at Duke Medicine. Defense mechanisms used by the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans enable it to lead to fatal meningitis, which is one of the ...

What do cancer cells, weeds, and pathogens have in common? They all evolve resistance to the treatments that are supposed to eliminate them. However, researchers developing the next generation of antibiotics, herbicides, and anti-cancer therapeutics rarely come together to explore the common evolutionary principles at work across their different biological ...

For a little over four months in 2003, the world was gripped in the clutches of an alarming new disease, one that spread at jet speed to at least 30 countries. Then, as quickly as it emerged, SARS vanished. The World Health Organization declared severe acute respiratory syndrome contained on July ...

Late last week, a Russian news outlet reported that scientists at Antarctica's Lake Vostok, buried under miles of ice, said they had found bacteria that appeared to be new to science. Now, the head of that lab has said the signature is actually just contamination, leading outside researchers to say ...

When Jessica Green competed in roller derby, she wondered how training, socializing and colliding with other roller girls could be affecting her health in invisible ways. As a member of the Emerald City Roller Girls, Green went by "Thumper Biscuit" on the track, but she is also the director of the ...

The hotel I’ve been staying at this week at the TED Conference in Long Beach, Calif., markets its beds as being hypo-allergenic. As if that were possible. But let’s not fear microbes any longer. It is time to start embracing them. Resistance is futile anyway. They own us. The cells ...

Long understudied, the human microbiome—the microbes, with their genomes, that dwell in and on the human body—is now under intense scrutiny. It is increasingly clear that “the human indigenous microbial communities … play a larger role in human health and disease than previously recognized” (Nutr Rev 2012;70:S2-S9). In August, two studies ...

The search for a cure for deadly infectious disease like Tuberculosis has led a researcher for the US deep underwater. Brian Murphy, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is collecting actinomycete bacteria from water throughout the world in a hunt for new antibiotics. He ...

According to a new report in the journal Antiviral Therapy, researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis have found that nanoparticles loaded with bee venom are capable of destroying the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving the body’s cells unharmed. In a radical departure from traditional attempts to treat ...

Researchers have uncovered a virus inside a host with a non-standard nuclear genetic code—one that differs from the standard genetic code that almost all living things use to produce proteins. “The finding is significant because it shows that these viruses can overcome what appears to be an insurmountable change in the ...

An international team of researchers has found that a combination of a particular virus in the mother and a specific gene variant in the child increases the risk of the child developing schizophrenia. The research team, led by scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark, scanned the entire genome of hundreds of ...

Hawaii has several official state symbols, including a flower, a song and a flag, but some say that's not enough. "Missing from this group of symbols is an official state microbe," Rep. James Tokioka wrote in a bill proposing to add a microbe to the list. Hawaii House members considered the bill ...

A new type of microbe has been found at a lake buried under Antarctica's thick ice, according to news reports. The find may unveil clues of the surrounding environment in the lake, according to scientists. The bacteria, said to be only 86 percent similar to other types known to exist on ...

The veined wing of the clanger cicada kills bacteria solely through its physical structure — one of the first natural surfaces found to do so. An international team of biophysicists has now come up with a detailed model of how this defence works on the nanoscale. The results are published ...

Extended space travel can cause dysregulation of astronauts' immune systems, researchers reported here. Astronauts who spent 6 months in space experienced reduced T-cell function and depressed creation of signaling cytokines, the latter of which persisted once they were back on earth, according to Brian Crucian, PhD, of NASA Johnson Space Center ...

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University and Yale University have discovered that a specialized receptor, normally found in the nose, is also in blood vessels throughout the body, sensing small molecules created by microbes that line mammalian intestines, and responding to these molecules by increasing blood pressure. The finding suggests ...

The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has developed the benthic microbial fuel cell (BMFC) as a persistent power supply for marine-deployed applications. The BMFC operates on the bottom of marine environments where it oxidizes organic matter residing in sediment with oxygen in overlying water. The NRL BMFC is a maintenance free, ...

From the lights in our houses to our mobile devices, we are an energized society. And future energy sources could come from some pretty unlikely places. Dr. Lenny Tender, a research chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), has co-invented a device, known as a benthic microbial fuel cell, that persistently ...

One of the driest spots on Earth — the Sahara desert — is increasingly responsible for snow and rain half a world away in the western U.S., a new study released Thursday found. It's no secret that winds carrying dust, soot and even germs make transcontinental journeys through the upper atmosphere ...

Scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health are attempting to find out more about a lethal new coronavirus and determine if it will become a pandemic or stay a limited threat. Vincent Munster, a representative of the NIH’s Virus Ecology Unit, attended the annual meeting of the Biodefense and Emerging ...

Bacteria that resist antibiotics are a growing problem worldwide, but one we thought we could limit or even reverse by better control of the drugs. The situation may be more complicated: some bacteria that have never seen an antibiotic can evolve resistance, and even thrive on it. Bacteria usually become resistant ...

A new study has exam­ined how bac­te­ria clog med­ical devices, and the result isn't pretty. The microbes join to cre­ate slimy rib­bons that tan­gle and trap other pass­ing bac­te­ria, cre­at­ing a full block­age in a star­tlingly short period of time. The find­ing could help shape strate­gies for pre­vent­ing clog­ging of devices ...

Long suspected as a cause of acne, the pore-dwelling bacterial species Propionibacterium acnes may not uniformly deserve its bad name. While some strains of the bacterium are associated with pimples, investigators have found another strain is associated with clear skin, according to a study published yesterday (February 28) in the ...

The strain of bacteria that caused a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in a Veterans Affairs hospital in western Pennsylvania is "almost identical" to the strain found there more than three decades ago, a newspaper reported. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (http://bit.ly/ZBHAYG ) said Sunday it had obtained documents indicating that the Legionella ...

The human “microbiome”—the trillions of bacteria, yeasts, and other microscopic creatures that live inside a human body—has been one of the major science stories in recent years. It seems that barely a week goes by that we don’t learn something new about the relationship between the human body and the ...

Odd-looking viruses are waging war on an ocean-living bacterium that’s key to the Earth’s carbon cycle, say researchers. In one corner is the Earth’s most abundant organism: SAR11, an ocean-living bacterium that survives where most other cells would die and plays a major role in the planet’s carbon cycle. It ...

From anxiety medication to birth control, pain killers, nutrient supplements and blood thinners, the remains of what we put into our bodies pass through the other end, off to the waste control centers that need to deal with our mess. Getting pharmaceutical leftovers out of the water so that it ...

Your body uses white blood cells to fight off the bacteria and viruses that invade your body and make you sick. In the gif below you can see a white blood cell called a neutrophil chase down a Staphylococcus aureus bacterium. The circular cells that the white blood cell is ...

Researchers say they have a clearer picture of why “bad” bacteria flourish in the intestines of people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The team discovered a biological mechanism by which harmful bacteria grow, edge out beneficial bacteria, and damage the gut in IBD. This new understanding, published in Science, may lead ...

For every one of our own cells, our bodies play host to 10 other microbial cells: bacteria, fungus, viruses and other microscopic creatures that scientists are still working to discover and understand. In other words, we're outnumbered by these 100 trillion or so microbes -- many of them strangers -- ...

Replacing missing gut bacteria in a mouse model of autism reverses adverse social behaviours and gut disorders associated with the condition. Last year, Sarkis Mazmanian and Paul Patterson at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena found that infecting pregnant mice with molecules from a flu virus caused autism-like symptoms in ...

Bacteria from a healthy person can be transplanted to an ill person to help them recuperate. Visiting Jamaican-born Prof Karen E Nelson, president J Craig Venter Institute, explained this was one of the strides being made in genomics, which is the study of the collective genetic material in an organism. ...

BIRD FLU (H5N1) has receded from international headlines for the moment, as few human cases of the deadly virus have been reported this year. But when Dutch researchers recently created an even more deadly strain of the virus in a laboratory for research purposes, they stirred grave concerns about what ...

In our ongoing quest for alternative energy sources, researchers are looking more to plants that grow in the wild for use in biofuels, plants such as switchgrass. However, attempts to “domesticate” wild-growing plants have a downside, as it could make the plants more susceptible to any number of plant viruses. In a ...

A third member of a family in the UK has been infected with a new respiratory illness similar to the deadly Sars virus, officials say. It strengthens evidence that the virus can spread between people, however experts say the risk to the general population remains small. Of the 12 people confirmed to ...

In 2008, nearly 300,000 infants in China got sick from milk formula tainted with melamine, a plastics additive that was used illegally to bulk up the formula's apparent protein content. Now, a study in rats implicates bacteria living in the gut as unwitting accomplices in this mass poisoning. The work ...

University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriology professor Timothy J. Donohue has been elected president of the American Society for Microbiology. Donohue will take up the post of president-elect on July 1, followed by a one-year term as ASM president beginning July 1, 2014. The Society is the oldest and largest life science membership organization ...

Being born by cesarean section has been tied to higher risks for various health problems in children, and now a new study finds these babies also have fewer "good" bacteria in their digestive tract. Similarly, babies who were exclusively or even partially formula-fed rather than breast-fed also had markedly different gut ...

As the world sneezes, wheezes and aches through the latest flu season, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute report what could be a key discovery for fighting the virus in its many forms. In a new study, the scientists said they have found out how to neutralize the flu’s most notorious ...

The virus used in the vaccine that helped eradicate smallpox is now working its magic on liver cancer. A genetically engineered version of the vaccinia virus has trebled the average survival time of people with a severe form of liver cancer, with only mild, flu-like side effects. Thirty people with hepatocellular ...

Around the world, private collectors and businesses maintain beautiful fish tanks stocked with colorful corals, speedy little cichlids and stately angelfish. But a hidden danger lurks: many fish that wind up in aquariums carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria that could pose a threat not just to a billion-dollar industry but to human ...

Desert soil microbes could help halt desertification and boost agriculture in arid regions of the Middle East and North Africa, according to a study. Scientists from the United Arab Emirates [UAE] have isolated local salt- and drought-tolerant strains of Rhizobia, soil bacteria that fix nitrogen when they become established inside the ...

A stomach bacterium believed to cause health problems such as gastritis, ulcers, and gastric cancer may play a dual role by balancing the stomach's ecosystem and controlling body weight and glucose tolerance, according to immunologists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech. Usually the villain in studies of gastric cancer ...

For the first time, scientists report, they have found bacteria living in the cold and dark deep under the Antarctic ice, a discovery that might advance knowledge of how life could survive on other planets or moons and that offers the first glimpse of a vast ecosystem of microscopic life ...

A few days ago, the Food and Drug Administration released two important documents related to antibiotic use in livestock raising, and what the results of that antibiotic use are. I’d say that they released them quietly, except, when it comes to this issue, every release seems to be quiet, never ...

Gold prospectors may one day use Petri dishes to help with their quests. A species of bacterium forms nanoscale gold nuggets to help it to grow in toxic solutions of the precious metal, reports a paper published online today in Nature Chemical Biology. The molecule with which the bacteria create the ...

A New York company plans to build a bacteria-based power generation facility at Brunswick Landing. Village Green Ventures hopes to file permit applications for the project by the end of the month and will hold a public meeting about it Wednesday evening. Planned for 2 acres of property on the former Navy ...

Imagine if you could take living cells, load them into a printer, and squirt out a 3D tissue that could develop into a kidney or a heart. Scientists are one step closer to that reality, now that they have developed the first printer for embryonic human stem cells. In a new ...

Bacteria are ubiquitous and some of them are real survival specialists – a property, which is particularly challenging for space missions. The spacecraft that are sent on their long journey into space should be as clean as possible and considerably reduced in microbial burden, since the risk of biological contamination ...

Swiss researchers have discovered that flow cytometry can now quantify microbial cells in drinking water—and do so in minutes rather than days. Stemming from work at aquatic research institute Eawag (Dübendorf, Switzerland) and extensive tests both in Switzerland and abroad, the optical techinque has been incorporated into the Swiss Food ...

The influenza virus can spread up to 6 feet from a patient's head via submicron particles during routine hospital care, according to a study of patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) and throughout a tertiary care hospital with influenza-like illness during the 2010 to 2011 influenza season. It was ...

A genetically reprogrammed Herpes simplex virus (HSV) can cure metastatic diffusion of human cancer cells in the abdomen of laboratory mice, according to a new study published January 31 in the Open Access journal PLOS Pathogens. The paper reports on the collaborative research from scientists at the at the University ...

The microbiome of breast milk is influenced by many factors, including maternal weight and how the baby was delivered, according to research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Raul Cabrera-Rubio, M.D., of the University of Valencia in Spain, and colleagues used pyrosequencing and quantitative polymerase chain reaction methods to ...

There's more to malnutrition than poor diet. Two complementary studies suggest that microbes have an important role to play in both the onset and treatment of a poorly understood form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor. Malnutrition, the leading cause of death among children worldwide, remains something of a puzzle. It is unclear, ...

The people on the front lines of tuberculosis control have their hands full, but their biggest challenge for the moment may be containing strains of the disease that are resistant to drugs. Worldwide the number of TB cases is going down. The bad news is that the number of drug-resistant cases ...

The scariest thing about a shark's mouth — aside from the teeth — is the bacteria. "It's a really dirty bite," said Dr. Robert Borrego, medical director of the St. Mary's trauma center in West Palm Beach, which has treated several shark-bite victims. "Some of them get infected.'' To improve medical treatment ...

Imagining tiny creatures infiltrating human brains is creepy enough. But Marion Vittecoq knows she has been invaded. Her inner companions may be just hanging out — or they may be subtly changing her personality, manipulating her behavior or altering her risk of disease. Yet she doesn’t sound particularly upset. Not once ...

In their search for habitable worlds, astronomers have started to consider exomoons, or those likely orbiting planets outside the solar system. In a new study, a pair of researchers has found that exomoons are just as likely to support life as exoplanets. The research, conducted by René Heller of Germany's Leibniz ...

A federal advisory committee yesterday recommended increased biosafety precautions for research involving H5N1 avian influenza viruses that can spread among mammals, a step that stems from the ongoing controversy over studies involving lab-modified H5N1 strains that show increased transmissibility in ferrets. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) of the National Institutes ...

Forget chicken soup or hot tea. There is a new batch of home flu remedies — and they don’t skimp on the alcohol. When Jeni Britton Bauer, owner of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in Columbus, Ohio, was young, getting a cold or the flu meant her mother and grandmother would mix ...

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 Health in Olympia. "We're ...

Vanderbilt biochemists have discovered that the process bacteria undergo when they become drug resistant can act as a powerful tool for drug discovery. Their findings -- reported this week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- should give a major boost to natural ...

If we are to believe a half-century of daytime TV commercials, housekeeping is war — a perpetual battle against the sneaky soldiers of nature. For decades, we’ve armed ourselves with cleaning products to slay bacteria, scrape away fungus and torture mites. As our household organisms move up the evolutionary ladder, ...

Some carbon nanotubes used for strengthening plastics may have an adverse effect on soil microbiology. Specifically, these raw, non-functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes were shown to damage the active microbes in low-organic soil. Ron Turco, a professor of agronomy at Purdue University, says many of the bacteria affected could be involved in carbon ...

A new study could provide the link that scientists have been looking for to confirm that reactivation of a latent herpes virus is a cause of some heart problems. Looking at blood samples from 299 heart patients, researchers at Ohio State University found that those who had suffered a heart attack ...

At least 20% of people, including half of schoolchildren, were infected with swine flu during the first year of the pandemic in 2009, according to data from 19 countries. It is thought the virus killed 200,000 people around the world. A World Health Organization-led study looked for evidence of the body's immune ...

Business Week interview with a fashion designer who makes her collection from bacteria: This is really in its infancy, no? I’m still very much focusing on apparel and luxury products—jewelry, things that use small amounts of material. The lab materials are quite expensive and are not being produced in great volume. But ...

Researchers at the Paris Cardiovascular Research Center (PARCC) have shown how adhesion of Neisseria (N.) meningitidis to human microvessels in a humanized mouse model leads to the characteristic cutaneous lesions of meningococcal sepsis. This work, published on January 24 in the Open Access journal PLOS Pathogens, is an important demonstration ...

The storm clouds in Earth's atmosphere are filled with microbial life, according to a new study. The research, published today (Jan. 23) in the journal PLoS One, revealed that hailstones drawn from storm clouds harbor several species of bacteria that tend to reside on plants, as well as thousands of organic ...

The mosquito that spreads the dengue virus is a homebody that infects visiting friends and relatives. The Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread dengue fever tap into the domestic networks of humans, along with their bloodstreams, finds a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The data from ...

Viruses closely related to the new coronavirus that emerged last year in the Middle East have been discovered in specimens from a number of species of bats found widely throughout Europe and beyond, a new study shows. The work suggests bats common to Europe, Russia, parts of Asia and Africa and ...

No one wants a hacking cough for days or weeks on end. But research shows that it generally takes about 18 days to get over a standard cough-based illness. Most of us grow impatient after a week or so and head to the doctor to get a prescription. The problem ...

It’s always fascinating to me to see how seriously other parts of the world take the issue of antibiotic use in agriculture, given the long struggle in the United States to get the Food and Drug Administration to act and to get legislation through Congress. The European Parliament has voted ...

A new technique designed to make current antibiotics more effective works by disabling select genes in bacteria. Described in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the technique systematically identifies genes within E. coli bacteria that inhibit the production of molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS) that damage the bacteria’s DNA. Once those genes are ...

Doctors don't clearly understand why some babies cry excessively and others don't, but a new study suggests abnormal gut bacteria could play a role. The research identified a distinct bacterial "signature" in the guts of infants with colic, a term that describes babies who cry for more than three hours ...

Microorganisms may get a bad rap in a setting like a hospital, but in the world of research, they’re offering fascinating new insights into human health and disease. One group of researchers, for example, has linked microbial changes in the gut to the dose-limiting gastrointestinal side effects of certain drugs, and ...

Last summer, we learned about fake poop made from soybeans that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation used to test high-tech commodes at their toilet fair. Now, we've come across another type of artificial poop, and it's being created to help people with really bad cases of diarrhea. This synthetic stool isn't ...

In the search for alternatives to conventional antibiotics, researchers have identified an enzyme that kills the bacteria that causes strep throat. The enzyme, PlyC, operates by locking onto the surface of a bacteria cell and chewing a hole in the cell wall large enough for the bacteria’s inner membrane to protrude ...

Infectious bacteria have for the first time been caught performing "biological alchemy" to transform parts of a host body into those more suited to their purposes, by a team in Edinburgh. The study, in the journal Cell, showed leprosy-causing bacteria turning nerves into stem cells and muscle. The authors said the "clever ...

Why are women more prone to autoimmune diseases like lupus, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis? A new study in mice points to a possible contributor: different types of bacteria that populate our guts. It goes like this: Different mixes of bacteria reside in the innards of male and female mice. Those ...

The mosquitoes that spread dengue fever tap into the domestic networks of humans, along with their bloodstreams, finds a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Mosquitoe Like the housefly, the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the dengue virus is a homebody, perfectly adapted to the ...

A FORM of gene therapy developed by researchers at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research may provide hope to sufferers of HIV, preventing the virus from crippling the immune system by manipulating its genetic structure and turning HIV into a weapon against itself. Dr David Harrich has utilised a technique that ...

Natural sensory system such as bacteria engineered to detect pollution and placed in a self-contained portable box could be the most effective way to track pollutants. Such devices are being developed as part of BIOMONAR, an EU-funded project which follows on from its predecessors, ECODIS and TOXICHIP. "Bacteria like all ...

“I’m the poet who does the impossible thing. I am the poet who aspires to have the biggest imagination in the room,” Christian Bök says bluntly. Yet his grandiose inventiveness has been focused on the most minuscule attempt at verse. After 11 years of working on what he’s dubbed “The ...

Anyone still laboring under the mistaken assumption that genes are the most important factor in determining destiny should take a look at research that is being reported in this week’s Science about a particular strain of mice that have a genetic predisposition to develop type 1 diabetes. It turns out ...

IF we’re to believe half a century of daytime TV commercials, housekeeping is war — a perpetual battle against the sneaky soldiers of nature. For decades, we’ve armed ourselves with cleaning products to slay bacteria, scrape away fungus and torture mites. As our household organisms move up the evolutionary ladder, ...

Glinting in shimmering shades of blue and green, the emerald cockroach wasp is surely a thing of beauty, but its shimmering exterior masks its cruel nature. The emerald cockroach wasp is one nature’s most impressive neurochemists. At its core, it is a parasite. The female wasp lays her eggs on ...

The United States is seeing its fair share of illness this winter. The country is in the midst of a particularly bad flu season, the worst outbreak of whooping cough since 1955, and an emerging outbreak of norovirus (a stomach bug that causes diarrhea and vomiting.) Despite the seeming inundation of illness, ...

Aggregations of the red and black coloured firebugs are ubiquitous under linden trees in Central Europe, where the bugs can reach astounding population densities. While these insects have no impact on humans, their African, Asian, and American relatives, the cotton stainers, are serious agricultural pests of cotton and other Malvaceous ...

Scientists have identified the chemical 'fingerprints' given off by specific bacteria when present in the lungs, potentially allowing for a quick and simple breath test to diagnose infections such as tuberculosis. Publishing their study today in the Journal of Breath Research, the researchers have successfully distinguished between different types of bacteria, ...

Feeding faeces to people with chronic infection can cure them, but who wants to eat poo? A synthetic alternative could provide a more palatable option. Hospital superbug Clostridium difficile can wreak havoc in the guts of vulnerable people, especially those who have lost some of their protective gut flora as a ...

A TRIO of young friends clutched hands in disbelief as they learnt that their project, sparked by a mundane discovery in the garden, had landed them the prestigious BT Young Scientist of the Year award. With tears rolling down their cheeks, the 15-year-old third year students from Kinsale Community School, Co ...

New national drinking water rules are expected to lead to fewer dangerous pathogens coming out of the tap. The new regulation, which was announced last month and takes effect within three years, switches focus to a type of bacteria that more accurately reflects the presence of pathogens that can make people ...

A new theory of how plant photosynthesis involves quantum coherence has been suggested by physicists in the UK, Germany and Spain. This latest research is based on the study of organisms that live deep under the sea yet are able to convert sunlight into energy. The study suggests that molecular ...

As anyone who suffers from recurrent cold sores knows, herpes is a master escapist. This family of viruses – including strains that cause lesions on the genitals, infectious mononucleosis (glandular fever) and, in some cases, blindness and birth defects – is able to wriggle free of the body's defences, reactivating ...

If you haven't caught the flu yet or don't know someone who has, you might want to buy a lottery ticket today. You're one lucky person. As The Associated Press writes, "from the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms." More than 40 states report ...

The detailed changes in the structure of a virus as it infects an E. coli bacterium have been observed for the first time, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UT Health) Medical School this week in ...

By varying laser and electric fields, scientists can use tiny centrifuge-like whirlpools to separate particles and microbes. The technology could bring innovative sensors and analytical devices for lab-on-a-chip applications, or miniature instruments that perform measurements normally requiring large laboratory equipment. Rapid electrokinetic patterning (REP) is a potential new tool for applications, including ...

In the mid-19th century, if you had wanted to have a scientific fight, you could have picked no better subject than palaeontology. Fossils pouring out of the mines, quarries and railway cuttings of the industrial revolution were undermining the biblical accounts of creation and early history, then believed literally true. ...

It is not your imagination — more people you know are sick this winter, even people who have had flu shots. The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a ...

Dengue epidemics continue to break out in South America. Last year, more than 100,000 people contracted dengue fever in Rio de Janeiro alone. In its fight against the deadly virus, the city is employing unique methods. The endless battle against Rio de Janeiro's mosquitoes takes Luciano do Campos Lobo to dark ...

Discover Magazine is partnering with Instructables and SciStarter, an online citizen science community, to solve real problems facing researchers. The Citizen Science Contest is your opportunity to help millions of regular people contribute to scientific discovery. Prizes include a Celestron telescope, DISCOVER subscriptions, and time-lapse cameras! But hurry, the deadline ...

Bacteria that live almost a mile under the surface of the ocean, where light is scare, have adapted biological ways to harness tiny amounts of light very efficiently, and in some cases can use photosynthesis to convert 100 percent of the light they find into electricity. In contrast a typical ...

Deep in the thicket of west Africa, on a bamboo bridge strung over raging waters, Erica Ollmann Saphire groped through the dark toward a village where pestilence can snuff out life with ruthless efficiency. She was looking for rodents. The Scripps Research Institute biologist wanted to know how and where her ...

A new research report published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows how the bacteria known for causing gum disease--Porphyromonas gingivalis--manipulates the body's immune system to disable normal processes that would otherwise destroy it. Specifically, the report shows that this pathogen prompts the production of the anti-inflammatory molecule Interleukin-10 (IL-10). ...

Biologist Daniel Smith crouched in an empty patient room at the new University of Chicago hospital and dragged a white cotton swab across the gleaming tile. Smith studied the dust-smudged tip before breaking it off into a plastic tube labeled "floor." "A good sample for us," said Smith, securing the tiny vial ...

Researchers have found fossils of bacteria that are nearly 3.5 billion years old, believed to be the oldest visible fossils ever uncovered. The fossils, found in northwest Australia's Pilbara region, are from a time before oxygen existed on Earth and are from just one billion years after Earth's formation, according to ...

Humans carry around loads of living bacteria that are crucial for good health, and through breastfeeding, infants make some of their first contact with beneficial microorganisms that will colonize their body. Scientists have discovered that breast milk contains more species of bacteria than originally expected — more than 700 varieties. The ...

Carl Woese, a biophysicist and evolutionary microbiologist whose discovery 35 years ago of a “third domain” of life in the vast realm of micro-organisms altered scientific understanding of evolution, died on Sunday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 84. His death was announced by the University of Illinois, where ...

The University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine launched a new website in October called "The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia." As the name suggests, the site is a chronicle of the American experience during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 -- the Spanish flu pandemic -- ...

In 2011, an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes in cantaloupe led to almost 150 illnesses and 30 deaths. With a spate of recent outbreaks of such foodborne pathogens as Salmonella , Shiga toxin-producing E. coli and L. monocytogenes , the ability to predict where and how these deadly microbes enter the ...

The “quantified self” movement might need a new name. Enthusiasts are now tracking not just themselves but the trillions of bacteria that live in and on their bodies. Self-trackers use smartphone apps and gadgets to keep tabs on how much they exercise and what they eat—as well as their blood ...

Different microbes may create variations in otherwise identical wine grapes in the same vineyard and affect the wine's flavor, South African researchers say. Mathabatha Setati and colleagues from Stellenbosch University said various microbes could contribute to flavor fluctuations in samples of grapes from one vineyard as they are fermenting in different ...

Hong Kong has earned another accolade, with a new bacteria named after the city. Streptococcus hongkongensis was discovered when a worker at one of the city's fish stalls cut his thumb on a fish fin. The 44-year-old man did not seek treatment for his wound, until after a month when the swelling ...

Rare brain tumors found in raccoons in Northern California and Oregon may be linked to a new virus, according to a new study. Researchers, led by scientists from the University of California, Davis, said their findings could shed light on how viruses cause cancer in both animals and humans. "Understanding how infectious ...

If we assume that life got started during the warmer, wetter conditions of Mars' past, could it still be hanging on somewhere under its frigid, sparse atmosphere? Without a careful examination of hundreds of potential habitats around the red planet, that question is probably impossible to definitively answer. But we ...

For decades, scientists have known that deforestation is one of the greatest threats to the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest, which has the highest number of plant and animal species of any region its size on the planet. Now, scientists have found out that deforestation is a threat to the ...

Research published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that some bacterial cells carry a molecular 'suicide complex' to kill themselves in the event of lethal infection by viral parasites. Such 'altruistic suicide' prevents or limits viral replication and protects the rest of the bacterial ...

If you are an organic food or paleo diet lover and think it means your gut microbiome resembles your ancestors in any way, you are wrong. We aren't even close to 100 years ago much less ancient times. The microbiome does not lie. A team analyzed microbiome data from ...

Hepatitis C virus has evolved to invade and hijack the basic machinery of the human liver cell to ensure its survival and spread. Researchers at the University of North have discovered how hepatitis C binds with and repurposes a basic component of cellular metabolism known as a microRNA to help ...

The next time you sacrifice a sheep or a goat during a major religious festival or ritual, make sure that you purchase a healthy animal, free of viral infection. If possible, get it examined by a veterinary doctor. Health experts, faced with frequent cases of Orf virus, have now called for ...

An experimental "Trojan-horse" cancer therapy has completely eliminated prostate cancer in experiments on mice, according to UK researchers. The team hid cancer killing viruses inside the immune system in order to sneak them into a tumour. Once inside, a study in the journal Cancer Research showed, tens of thousands of viruses were ...

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have mapped the molecular mechanism by which a virus known as cytomegalovirus (CMV) so successfully infects its hosts. This discovery paves the way for new research avenues aimed at fighting this and other seemingly benign viruses that can turn deadly. Not all viruses are created equal. ...

Some children ask Santa for a pony. Others want video games. But Christmas came early for a group of San Marino High School science prodigies, with a special delivery from the International Space Station. The package: a plastic tube containing bacteria grown in space, opened Dec. 15 in a laboratory at ...

This is Cliff. He’s a two-year-old beagle who could become hospitals’ newest, cutest weapon against infections by the bacterium Clostridium difficille. Hospitals around the world are rife with contagious C. diff infections, which kill thousands and sicken many more every year, raising health care costs, increasing the length of hospital ...

Remains of dead bacteria have far greater meaning for soils than previously assumed. Around 40 per cent of the microbial biomass is converted to organic soil components, write researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Technische Universität Dresden (Technical University of Dresden) , the University of Stockholm, ...

A drug currently being used to treat ischemic strokes may prove to be a significant advance in the treatment of tuberculosis and ulcers. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal, a compound called ebselen effectively inhibits the thioredoxin reductase system in a wide variety of bacteria, ...

A disease impacting bat colonies in North America has yet to surface in Colorado. However, a new study is giving hope to local wildlife biologists on the look-out for potential outbreaks. Bats with the white-nose syndrome are prone to immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), a virus that is similar to AIDS, ...

A new pacemaker has been built inside a heart by converting beating muscle into cells which can organise the organ's rhythm, US researchers report. The heartbeat is controlled by electrical signals and if these go awry the consequences can be fatal. Scientists injected a genetically-modified virus into guinea pigs to turn part ...

I hope you never have this experience: A loved one is hospitalized. Her doctors tell you her infection is resistant to antibiotics. She dies. More than 60,000 American families go through that experience each year -- and the number is almost certain to rise. Multidrug-resistant organisms are showing up in top-flight ...

Understanding what happens to a soybean root hair system infected by symbiotic, nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria, Bradyrhizobium japonicum, could go a long way toward using this symbiosis to redesign plants and improve crop yields, benefitting both food and biofuel production. Because of their extensive genomes, it is especially difficult to use ...

New research from Lund University casts new light on the interaction between the immune system and streptococcus bacteria, which cause both mild tonsillitis and serious infections such as sepsis and necrotising fasciitis. The way in which antibodies attach to the bacteria is linked to how serious the disease is. Antibodies are ...

A coronavirus—genetically related to the SARS virus—that caused two infections and sparked the World Health Organization to issue an alert in September may be able to jump from a variety of bats and pigs to humans, and back again, according to a study published last month (November 20) in mBio. ...

In a study published today in the open access journal PLOS Pathogens, researchers at Emory University have discovered a potentially important mechanism by which the Ebola virus alters and evades the immune response of its infected host. Ebola virus is the causative agent of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (EHF), a disease with ...

There’s lots of news to catch up with regarding the new coronavirus that emerged last summer in the Middle East and has been causing concern to international health authorities all autumn: additional cases, additional deaths, and new lab evidence that is more than a little concerning. First: The case count has ...

Powerful X-rays have revealed a potential way to attack Helicobacter pylori, a stomach bacteria harbored by at least half the world’s population. In 1982, Australian scientists extracted bacteria from a person’s stomach, grew them in a petri dish, and identified them as the cause of ulcers and gastritis. Hundreds of millions of ...

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Researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen and B-WARE Research Centre have discovered new methane-consuming bacteria in the soil beneath the Brunssummerheide peatland reserve in Limburg, the Netherlands. Although the bacteria may be the result of environmental pollution, they are now consuming the harmful greenhouse gas. Applied and Environmental Microbiology has published the ...

The health of most of the planet’s population is rapidly coming to resemble that of the United States, where death in childhood is rare, too much food is a bigger problem than too little, and life is long and often darkened by disability. High blood pressure is now the leading “risk ...

Last week (November 27), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a proposal that would require that some grant applications involving the H5N1 avian influenza virus—which became the source of much debate earlier this year when researchers evolved the deadly virus to be transmissible between mammals—undergo additional department-wide or government-wide ...

The widespread use of antibiotics in hospitals triggered the emergence of two resistant strains of the Clostridium superbug that has killed thousands of people worldwide over the past two decades, a study has shown. A genetic analysis of about 300 samples of Clostridium difficile bacteria collected from around the world found ...

Diagnostic tests for the novel coronavirus (CoV) that recently emerged in the Middle East are being deployed rapidly in Europe, and about 250 patients have already been tested for the virus, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). An ECDC survey revealed that a screening test for ...

Does beer have anti-virus powers? According to a new study funded by Japanese beer company Sapporo Breweries, a "key ingredient" found in the world's most popular alcoholic beverage may very well help stave off winter sniffles. Researchers at Sapporo Medical University found that humulone, a chemical compound in hops, was effective ...

Scientists have found a soil bacteria that not only resists the toxic effects of antibiotics -- it makes a meal out of them. Many bacteria can protect themselves from antibiotics by modifying the compounds to make them harmless or by pumping the compounds out of their cells entirely. And other bacteria ...

Nickel-eating bacteria may have worsened the world's worst mass die-off by producing huge amounts of methane, a new study suggests. The study is the latest attempt to explain how most of the world's ocean species died off in just a few hundred thousand years at the end of the Permian era, ...

We all have E. coli bacteria in our gut but each of us carries a version that is genetically slightly different. The same can be said of most gut microbes: our own gut metagenome, that is the sum of all the genomes of all our gut microbes, appears to be ...

(excerpted from Maryn McKenna's excellent blog for Wired Magazine; 'Superbug') There’s been an extraordinary outbreak going on over the past few months here in the United States: cases of fungal meningitis, a rare illness, primarily caused by Exserohilum rostratum, a plant pathogen that is equally rare as a cause of human ...

Joel Montgomery spends most of his time working with his team of epidemiologists to suppress outbreaks of dengue fever and Rift Valley fever in Kenya. "Both are mosquito-borne diseases that can be fatal," Montgomery said. "We're concerned about Rift Valley fever getting to the U.S., because it can infect cattle." But on ...

A Lubbock, Texas-based company called Microzap has developed a method to keep bread edible for 60 days, BBC News reported. Typically, bread goes moldy in about 10 days. The company’s researchers realized that a microwave device they designed to kill bacteria such as MRSA and salmonella could also be used to ...

Scientists have developed a computer model for predicting flu outbreaks weeks in advance, raising the tantalizing possibility of "flu forecasts" that might one day help guide such decisions as when to ramp up vaccine production or close schools. The new flu model, described in a study published this week in ...

Flu season is just around the corner. As winter approaches, the cold forces us into the warmth of our homes, where interactions with our fellow humans are magnified by increased close contact. These conditions are ideal for the spread of the influenza virus, which is mainly spread by sneezes. A tear-inducing, ...

Are you willing to take a close look at yourself for science? A really, really close look? A team of scientists in the Bay Area is inviting citizen scientists to join them in a quest to create the largest database of human microbiomes in the world. The human microbiome is the ecosystem of ...

Researchers have developed a bacteria strain that is uniquely effective at degrading the toxic industrial chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs are toxic man-made organic chemicals that pose a threat to human health and to the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency has classified PCBs as potential human carcinogens known to ...

Macho features have long been touted as an evolutionary asset that heterosexual women look for in a potential mate. But new research suggests weight may be a more powerful driver of attraction. Macho features such as a strong jaw and squinty eyes advertise that a guy possesses high testosterone, according to ...

You might say blue-green algae are optimists: they put things in the best possible light—literally. Actually, the organisms aren’t really algae. They’re photosynthetic ocean bacteria. And they can fine-tune their photosynthetic apparatus to take advantage of the predominant wavelength of light. Now researchers have figured out how one of ...

The doctors tried one antibiotic after another, racing to stop the infection as it tore through the man's body, but nothing worked. Just days after the middle-age patient arrived at the University of Virginia Medical Center, the stubborn bacteria in his blood had fought off even what doctors consider "drugs of ...

A study by polar researchers has revealed an ancient community of bacteria able to thrive in the lightless, oxygen-depleted, salty environment beneath nearly 70 feet of ice in an Antarctic lake, giving insight into the unique ecosystem. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, provides clues about biochemical ...

A well-established family of drugs used to treat parasitic diseases is showing surprising potential as a therapy for tuberculosis (TB), according to new research from University of British Columbia microbiologists. The findings, published online this week in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, are based on in vitro tests of the ...

Texas Biomedical Research Institute scientists in San Antonio have developed a faster, less expensive route to screen suitable tests for bioterror threats and accelerate the application of countermeasures. The new process screens for pairs of affinity reagents – molecular magnets that bind to and hold on to their targets, be ...

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made a major advance in understanding how flu viruses replicate within infected cells. The researchers used cutting-edge molecular biology and electron-microscopy techniques to "see" one of influenza's essential protein complexes in unprecedented detail. The images generated in the study show flu virus ...

A new coronavirus, similar in nature to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), has infected six and resulted in two deaths in the Middle East, various media outlets have reported this weekend. According to BBC News, the number of reported cases, as well as the number of fatalities linked with the respiratory ...

For free-living organisms, the ability to sense and respond to the outside environment is crucial for survival. Eukaryotes, such as animals and plants, often have highly complex network systems in place to monitor their surroundings and respond effectively, but bacteria have developed a remarkably simple system. It’s called the ‘Two ...

The human gut may help control the bacterial populations that live within it via secretions that kill some bacteria while supporting others, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Biology. The gut is an enormously complex environment inhabited not only by human cells but also by trillions of ...

Pfizer Inc.’s Zithromax or a generic version of the antibiotic pill should be added to the standard treatment for gonorrhea to fight multidrug-resistant strains of the sexually transmitted bacterium, doctors in Europe said. New European guidelines for sexually transmitted infections recommend giving azithromycin as well as the injected medicine ceftriaxone, which ...

A biologist who has been watching a dozen bottles of bacteria evolve for nearly a quarter of a century is hoping he can find someone to keep his lab experiment going long after he dies. Meanwhile, just by coincidence, a botanist who works across campus is carefully tending an experiment that ...

Welton Taylor had a distinguished career as a microbiologist and expert on foodborne illnesses, but he always saw himself first as a civil rights activist. An Alabama native, Mr. Taylor promoted racial equality from the Army and college to his years in Chicago, where in the 1950s he was one of ...

A patient from Qatar has been confirmed with a new virus related to SARS, while health officials are investigating whether it may have spread between humans after close contact in Saudi Arabia. Germany's Robert Koch Institute said Friday that the Qatari patient fell ill in October with severe respiratory problems. He ...

Little attention has been paid to the use of antibiotics in the aquaculture industry as one reason for the increase in bacteria resistant to antibiotics and the spread of such resistance to other bacteria. Since the antibiotics that are used in veterinary medicine and aquaculture belong to the same group ...

An FDA advisory panel has voted in favor of a vaccine against the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu that would be stockpiled and used in case of pandemic. By twin votes of 14-0, the panel agreed that the immunogenicity and the safety of the vaccine, made in Quebec by GlaxoSmithKline, were ...

Four months ago, a mucus sample arrived in Dr. Ali Mohamed Zaki’s laboratory in Saudi Arabia. The mucus had been coughed up by a 60-year-old Saudi Arabian man with a strange case of pneumonia. He had been admitted to the Dr. Soliman Fakeeh hospital in Jeddah on June 13; soon after, ...

Last week, CBC's Marketplace uncovered antibiotic-resistant bacteria on bathroom sinks, remote controls and bed throws. Warriner's tests found C. difficile, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other such bugs in every one of the 54 hotels tested. This week, the consumer watchdog show turns its attention to hotel ice machines and air ...

Rep. Louise M. Slaughter is not a runner, but she shares a marathoner’s philosophy when it comes to legislation: She’s in it for the long haul. It took several years for her to get a ban on genetic discrimination signed into law in 2008. Slaughter said she worked six years before ...

Pacifiers are among the most aptly named baby paraphernalia, but what if, instead of curing crankiness, they are actually causing babies to be more unruly? That’s what the latest research suggests: that binkies can be teeming with bacteria, yeast and mold that can actually sicken babies rather than soothe them. Pacifiers breed ...

Symbiotic microbes’ origin discovered after man impales hand on branch Two years ago, a 71-year-old Indiana man impaled his hand on a branch after cutting down a dead crab apple tree, causing an infection that led University of Utah scientists to discover a new bacterium and solve a mystery about how ...

Certain kinds of bacteria that cause urinary tract infections are becoming tougher to treat with current antibiotics, according to new research from Extending the Cure. UTIs are the second most common infection in the United States. ETC, a project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, recently released the ...

In a study that's already being greeted with notes of caution, Danish researchers report that children whose mothers had the flu or ran a fever lasting more than a week during pregnancy had an increased risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder. U.S. health officials stress that the new study, out ...

Children from wealthy families may more likely to have peanut allergies than those less well-off, a new study finds. In the study, children ages 1 to 9 from high-income families had higher rates of peanut allergies compared with children these ages from lower income families. The researchers analyzed information from 8,306 children ...

Three decades ago, some companies began adding a chemical called triclosan to their products and tried to convince consumers that their hand soap or toothpaste was better because it was “anti-bacterial.” Now, scientists are finding traces of that compound in the environment, and it’s causing concern about its potential effects on ...

The last few decades have seen dengue, a mosquito-borne viral infection, becoming one of the major public health concerns in the tropical and sub-tropical countries. So much so that over 40 per cent of the world’s population (2.5 billion) is at risk from dengue. According to the World Health Organisation, ...

And they said meth never did a body good. A study conducted by researchers in Taiwan found that methamphetamine may possess flu-fighting properties, Medical Daily reported. The study, published Tuesday in PLoS One, exposed human lung cells to varying quantities meth, then infected them with Influenza A (H1N1) viruses, a common subtype ...

Bacteria talk to each other using N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) as quorum sensing (QS) signals. This signaling allows the bacteria to control gene expression of virulence factors and biofilms once a critical density has been achieved. This phenomenon, quorum sensing, is important when an infection propagates. Now, researchers at Linköping University in ...

As someone who has been taking a daily regimen of probiotics for some time now, a recent study was of particular interest to me. Probiotics, for those of you who don’t already know, are live microorganisms that are found to benefit the microbiome in your stomach and intestinal tract. They ...

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the decision to list the SARS virus as a select agent, along with recently discovered haemorrhagic-fever viruses, Lujo and Chapare. This classification, which classifies pathogens or toxins as having the “potential to pose a severe threat to public ...

All babies are to be vaccinated against a highly infectious bug that is one of the most common causes of diarrhoea in children. From September next year, infants aged between two and four months will be immunised against rotavirus - which causes diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration. At present, almost ...

We often think of the world around us as sterile and static, especially when we are in a hospital. In reality, every surface on earth is literally teeming with millions of bacteria. Jack Gilbert, a microbiologist from the University of Chicago, has spent his career investigating these invisible companions all around ...

Although battery-powered vehicles are making great strides, it's tough to match the energy densities found in hydrocarbons. So they'll always be an excellent choice for applications where weight or long distances are involved—think airplanes and ships—but our planet has a finite supply of easy-to-extract hydrocarbons. At some point, we'll inevitably ...

Potentially deadly antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” including C. difficile and methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, were among the disturbing findings uncovered in a CBC Marketplace test conducted in dozens of hotel rooms across the country. In a comprehensive survey, Marketplace did a battery of tests in 54 hotel rooms across six major hotel chains, testing ...

Eight years ago, Herbert Smith (not his real name) did the unthinkable -- he swallowed thousands of microscopic pig whipworm eggs in a desperate try to quell his advancing Crohn's disease. "There was nothing to it," said Smith, a 33-year old financial analyst from New York. "It was drinking half a ...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an annual report on Monday profiling a variety of CDC influenza-related projects from around the world, including epidemiology training, vaccine effectiveness studies and flu surveillance. The CDC began its international flu efforts in 1997 when the agency investigated the first human infections ...

In one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted, an international team of scientists has thrown new light on the genetic basis of the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two most common forms of IBD, are chronic inflammatory digestive disorders. Dr. John Rioux, researcher ...

Here's something to consider if you haven't gotten your flu shot: people who are vaccinated may have a lower risk of heart disease. In two separate studies presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, researchers say the influenza vaccine may reduce the risk of heart related disease and death by up to ...

When it comes to flu vaccines, most kids clearly and loudly prefer the nasal spray over the traditional shot in the arm. As it turns out, those instincts are right on the nose. With mounting evidence that the FluMist nasal spray works much better in kids than an injection, flu experts are ...

Nasty bacteria cling to the surfaces of countertops. They also stick to medical devices—like catheters—that are placed inside the human body, where they can become a dangerous source of infection. Individually, bacteria are fairly easily killed. But if they multiply on a surface, they eventually form a biofilm—a tightly organized bacterial ...

In collaboration with national and international experts, researchers from Aarhus University have revealed new fundamental features of biomolecular interactions that enable plants to identify and respond appropriately to microorganisms. The new results provide a better understanding of the mechanisms governing the ability of plants to interact with beneficial microorganisms while ...

For the kinds of animals that are most familiar to us -- ones that are big enough to see -- it's a no-brainer: Is it better to sit around and wait for food to come to you, or to move around and find it? Larger animals that opt to sit ...

A group of scientists based at several institutions in the US and beyond are getting set to kick off a crowdsourcing study called the "American Gut Project," aimed at assessing gut microbial communities in 10,000 or more individuals in the US in relation to their diet and lifestyle. "The big question ...

The effort to overcome waste problems in the capital city keeps being conducted by Jakarta Provincial Government. This time, together with a Chinese company, Jakarta Provincial Government is planning to cultivate bacteria that have the ability to decompose wastes or sediments buildup on the riverbed. For the initial step, the ...

Bacteria can be pernicious, but they also keep your stomach digesting, turn cucumbers into beloved pickles, and can, apparently, also be used to make art. Of course, it all depends on how you want to define "art." But Zachary Copfer finds himself precisely where it intersects with science. "I believe that ...

Clostridium difficile is a common disease in hospitals and nursing homes and causes some 14,000 deaths each year in the United States. The disease can be treated with antibiotics, but the bacteria produce spores that resist common disinfection techniques, resulting in a high rate of re-infection. (See “Wrestling with Recurrent ...

Researchers at the University of Leeds have identified a crucial stage in the lifecycle of simple viruses like polio and the common cold that could open a new front in the war on viral disease. The team are the first to observe at a single-molecule level how the genetic material (genome) ...

What grows in the gut, for animals and people, is affected by diet. Beginning at birth, gut microbial colonies, known as gut microbiome, start forming. The composition of these colonies plays a big part in how the immune system develops and is linked to the later onset of metabolic diseases ...

The railways will set up three bacteria generation plants as part of its effort to equip more coaches with bio-toilets for eco-friendly waste disposal. The Indian Railways have set a target of installing bio-toilets designed by the DRDO in 2,500 coaches in the current fiscal. Bacteria plants will be set up ...

The agent of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) has been shown to have the ability to hide and demonstrate resistance from harsh environmental conditions to antibiotics used to treat the infection, thanks to the formation of a biofilm, according to a University of New Haven news release Oct. 24. The research, ...

Any part of the human body that is open to the outside world it available for the colonisation of bacteria. While this blog has covered bacteria in the gut, the vagina and the throat, one area I’ve neglected to cover is the bacteria that get into the lungs. As the ...

Modified viruses used to deliver genetic material into cells, known as viral vectors, have become the go-to delivery capsule in gene therapy. Capitalizing on their viral nature, investigators use viral vectors to efficiently target certain cells and deliver genetic material into the cell nucleus where native genes reside. ...

Researchers report that swine and human influenza A/H3N2 viruses associated with an Ohio county fair held in July make a nearly perfect genetic match, suggesting that there is almost no biological barrier to prevent such viruses from passing between humans and pigs. The authors sequenced the genomes of H3N2 viruses isolated ...

A mix of six different bacteria found naturally in the healthy gut system of mice and isolated from feces can succeed where antibiotics fail, and eradicate murine infection by highly contagious strains of the Gram-positive anaerobe Clostridium difficile, including the human epidemic 027/BI strain, report scientists at the Wellcome Trust ...

While ant paste, milk curd and berry preserves make up the "Blueberries and ant" dish at Denmark's restaurant Noma, bacteria and yeast will soon be next for diners at the eatery which has been crowned world's best restaurant for three years. Located on the ground floor of a renovated listed 18th ...

The Massachusetts pharmacy at the heart of a probe into a deadly meningitis outbreak may have violated federal health laws, U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigators said Friday, saying mold and bacteria were found in areas where drugs were mixed. Cases of fungal meningitis have reached 28 states, including Maryland, where ...

Investigators are sifting through records and testing a Massachusetts lab to determine how a fungus associated with a form of meningitis worked its way into products that should have been sterile. "It's really 'CSI' stuff," says Eric Kastango, president and owner of ClincalIQ, a New Jersey-based consulting firm that aims to ...

When you combine a cellphone's proximity to your ears, nose and mouth with its bacteria-loving warmth, the result can be harmful to your health. This hazard, says Jeffrey Cain, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians and chief of family medicine at Children's Hospital Colorado, often goes unnoticed. ...

A vaccine developed to prevent surgical wounds from infection with Staphylococcus aureus failed to provide benefit to patients, and may actually have increased mortality when compared with placebo, researchers said here. In the study, 201 of 3,958 patients who were inoculated with the S. aureus vaccine died -- a rate of ...

This digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted a small grouping of Gram-negative Sebaldella termitidis bacteria. Recently, “the genome of ATCC 33386 S. termitidis was recently sequenced as part of the U.S. Department of Energy - Joint Genome Institute’s (DOE-JGI) Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project. The GEBA project is ...

In June, a formerly healthy 60-year-old man was admitted to a hospital in Jidda, Saudi Arabia. He had been sick with a fever, cough and shortness of breath for several days; in the week that followed he developed severe pneumonia and renal failure. He died 11 days after ...

Environment is shown to play a much more significant role in the mouth's microbial set up than genes. The human mouth is a community bustling with microorganisms that live there. Little knowledge exists about what factors control which types that live there and which don't. In a new study published in ...

There are lots of things I enjoy about studying bacteria. I love their biochemistry and the secret inner workings of their metabolic pathways. I love that everything they do they manage within the confines of a single cell, and I love that you can go into a bacterial cell fairly ...

Biochemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered a genetic sequence that can alter its host gene's activity in response to cellular energy levels. The scientists have found this particular energy-sensing switch in bacterial genes, which could make it a target for a powerful new class of antibiotics. If ...

Up until now, scientists believed that the environmentally-resistant spores of Bacillus anthracis survived in a dormant state until it was ingested by a ruminating mammal like a cow and allowed to germinate. Researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine are now saying that the bacteria has found the ability ...

Yes, you can teach old bacteria new tricks. It is now routine to genetically reprogram microbes to make plastics, biofuels, vaccines and antibiotics. They have been engineered to detect arsenic levels in drinking water, destroy cancer cells and store digital data in DNA, making bacteria into biological flash drives. But we ...

Leaves of the plant that yields carob — the substitute for chocolate that some consider healthier than chocolate — are a rich source of antibacterial substances ideal for fighting the microbe responsible for listeriosis, a serious form of food poisoning, according to a report in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and ...

Jake Finkbonner was so close to death after flesh-eating bacteria infected him through a cut on his lip that his parents had last rites performed and were discussing donating the 5-year-old's tiny organs. Jake's 2006 cure from the infection was deemed medically inexplicable by the Vatican, the "miracle" needed to propel ...

Federal agents on Tuesday raided the Massachusetts pharmacy linked to a widespread meningitis outbreak that has killed 16 people and sickened more than 200 others, federal prosecutors said. Agents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration searched the New England Compounding Center, or NECC, in the Boston suburb of Framingham, with ...

As I wrote in The Times recently, a ski resort in northern Arizona will become the first in the world to make artificial snow totally out of sewage effluent this winter. Last February, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the resort, Arizona Snowbowl, ending a 10-year legal battle ...

The death toll linked to a meningitis outbreak has reached 15 people across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control on Sunday. According to the center’s latest figures, 205 fungal meningitis cases have been reported, with the bulk of them in Tennessee (53), Michigan (41), Virginia (34) and ...

The New Yorker once called virologist Nathan Wolfe "the world's most prominent virus hunter." Wolfe, the director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, spends his days tracking emerging infectious diseases before they turn into deadly pandemics. In The Viral Storm, Wolfe describes how most of those emerging infectious diseases originally start ...

Teens struggling with skin-scarring acne may soon find relief from an unusual source. Scientists have used genetic sequencing to identify 11 new viruses with the potential to kill the out-of-control bacteria that leads to intense breakouts. The findings add to an emerging body of research that indicates benign-to-human viruses living naturally ...

Along with the main elements of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, magnesium and sulphur, organic organisms also require trace amounts of certain other elements, including some metals. The most useful thing about the metals required by the body is that their outer electron orbitals are very close together, making it easy for ...

If you were a passenger aboard the meteorite from Mars bearing down on the town of Tata, Morocco in July 2011, you would be in a decidedly unenviable position. For one thing you’d be a bacterium — a nifty Martian bacterium, to be sure, but still. For another thing ...

If you're a pet-owner who kisses your dog on the mouth, you might want to think twice. A new study in the journal Archives of Oral Biology suggests that it's possible for disease-causing oral bacteria to be exchanged between dogs and their owners. Japanese researchers examined dental plaque from 66 dogs, as ...

Lately, we've been learning more and more about the teeming masses of bacteria inside our bodies - essentially trillions of tiny organisms that make us sick and keep us healthy. Now two scientists at the University of Colorado have dared to ask what kinds of bacteria lives inside our mouths. And ...

The first Ontario case of a human contracting the H1N1 variant influenza virus from a pig has been confirmed, the province’s chief medical officer said Tuesday. “It is a first for us in Ontario,” Dr. Arlene King told the Star. King said an adult male, who is in critical but stable condition ...

The UK’s first laboratory confirmed case of Crimean Congo Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (CCVHF) has died. Even so, health officials are stressing that this will not become a public outbreak. The Health Protection Agency is adamant the 38-year-old unnamed man poses no threat to others. “It can be acquired from an infected ...

A bacterium that some scientists thought could use arsenic in place of phosphorus in its DNA actually goes to extreme lengths to grab any traces of phosphorus it can find. The finding clears up a lingering question sparked by a controversial study, published in Science in 2010, which claimed that the ...

Over the last year, it’s become more and more apparent that I do, in fact, have recurrent cystitis. Having cystitis is a bit like entering the matrix – until I had my first attack I’d never even known it was a disease. It doesn’t appear in books, films or classroom ...

Every year as the days grow warmer, the Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) reemerges along the eastern coast of the United States, where it causes devastating disease in horses and, more rarely, humans. Scientists have long wondered how the virus, which is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito, ...

It now appears that the new coronavirus found on the Arabian Peninsula is more widespread than initially thought, even though only two people are known to have gotten sick from it. At first it seemed likely that the two known cases of illness from the new cousin-of-SARS virus may have been ...

A fascinating, if disconcerting, fact: More than 100 trillion so-called good bacteria thrive in or on the human body. A sizable chunk of them maintain residence in the human digestive tract. Probiotics, live microorganisms that benefit their human host, are among these beneficial bacteria. Probiotics are also found in foods and ...

Scientists have discovered bacteria that eats toxic material and, well, poops pure gold. This microbial magician, named Cupriavidus metallidurans, when placed in a minilab full of gold chloride, a nasty toxin, gobbled up the poison and, in about a week, processed it out as 24-karat nuggets of the precious yellow ...

Bacteria that became famous for their alleged "arsenic-munching" ability, a phenomenon later proved unlikely, may have evolved to sport proteins that filter out the toxic element, new research suggests. The bacteria, called GFAJ-1, a member of the genus Halomonadaceae, live in California's Mono Lake, amidst concentrations of arsenic that would kill ...

Can your dog get the flu from you? Scientists from Oregon State University (OSU) say the next time you’re sick, you might want to distance yourself from your beloved pets. Their recent research explored the possibility of human-to-pet flu transmissions and found evidence that the infection of pets from humans ...

The gold you see in the photo above was not found in a river or a mine. It was produced by a bacteria that, according to researchers at Michigan State University, can survive in extreme toxic environments and create 24-karat gold nuggets. Pure gold. Maybe this critter can save us all ...

Another fatality from a growing outbreak of a rare form of meningitis was reported Thursday, raising the death toll to five people, officials said. In all, 35 people in six states have been sickened from a steroid that was distributed to 23 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. All ...

New animal research suggests it may be possible to use a form of smallpox virus to infect and kill the tumor cells of a particularly virulent form of breast cancer. To date, this novel approach to attacking what's known as triple-negative breast cancer has centered exclusively around work with mice. By loading ...

Thousands of German schoolchildren have fallen ill with a vomiting and diarrhea bug. Officials are still awaiting laboratory results, but the norovirus has been found in some cases. More than 8,300 preschoolers and schoolchildren in eastern Germany, as well as a few teachers, have fallen ill with gastroenteritis after eating food ...

Eye proteins that can kill harmful bacteria may prove useful in developing new powerful and inexpensive antimicrobial drugs, according to a new study. The finding was made by University of California, Berkeley, researchers investigating why eyes are so resistant to infection. They noticed that there is no bacteria living on the ...

Healthy people's lungs are home to a diverse community of microbes that differs markedly from the bacteria found in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. That's the result of new research from Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, which has wide implications for treatment of cystic fibrosis and other ...

Waves at the beach are relaxing. Waves at a baseball game are fun. Waves in the bacterial world are deadly. This is according to a study offered by scientists from Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School. The study’s findings show one of the ...

The newly discovered virus that killed a Saudi Arabian man in June and is now causing life-threatening illness in a person from Qatar is similar to strains carried by bats, researchers reported Thursday. Most of the bat strains do not infect people. Why the new strain does — and how it ...

A harmless virus that lives on our skin could be used as a treatment for acne, scientists believe. The virus, called a phage, is naturally built to target and kill bacteria that cause acne - Propionibacterium acnes. Experts at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Pittsburgh found ...

Kindergartners who were given "good bacteria" supplements as infants were no less likely to suffer from allergies than other kids in a new study from Australia. The findings, reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, add to a mixed bag of results from research into whether probiotics can help ...

A new species of bacteria living 1,200 metres deep at freezing temperatures in the Bay of Bengal is all set to solve the universal problem of lactose intolerance in human beings. Lactose is a type of sugar present in milk. Two-thirds of people around the world cannot digest lactose, which ...

Jim Lahey, the founder of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York, wanted to find out which organisms inhabited his sourdough and produced its tantalizing sulfuric aroma. Meanwhile, in the East Village test kitchen of the Momofuku restaurants, David Chang and Dan Felder were fermenting pork tenderloins, pistachio misos and fish sauces, ...

Secretion of bacterial proteins is an essential biological process with biotechnological and biomedical impact on human health. European scientists studied a universal and widely conserved bacterial secretory pathway towards its utilisation in biotechnology and medicine. The coordinated secretion of proteins by bacteria consists of an essential biological process with tremendous ...

There’s a lot of talk these days about the role of gut bacteria in disease and health. The latest report in that area: a study in Nature that finds differences between the bacteria growing in the guts of people who have diabetes and those who don't. The Chinese and European authors ...

Physicians should pay attention to their "gut feeling" that something may be seriously wrong when assessing a child with an infectious disease -- even if the clinical appearance is reassuring -- an observational study suggested. Among 3,369 children whose primary care evaluation did not suggest a serious illness, six (0.2%) ultimately ...

The World Health Organization is keeping a close eye on a disease outbreak in Saudi Arabia caused by a virus in the same family as the one that caused SARS. There have been two confirmed infections with the new coronavirus and tests results are pending on a third suspected case, according ...

Researchers from Michigan State University have found a wrinkle in how hyenas use their noses that might have implications for how we understand the sense of smell in many other animals as well. Like most species of dogs, hyenas use scent as their primary sense — it’s how they find ...

The 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza virus appears to have required certain mutations in order to be transmitted to humans, according to a paper in the September Journal of Virology. The research could prove extremely valuable for efforts to predict human outbreaks. The 2009 influenza pandemic was caused by a ...

Flesh Eating Bacteria Can Infect Anyone – What You Should Know What is it? Necrotizing fasciitis, commonly known as flesh eating bacteria, infects various layers of the skin. In most cases, an immunocompromised individual, such as a smoker, drug addict, diabetic, or cancer patient is most vulnerable, although healthy individuals are also ...

Trillions of bacteria living in and on the human body play a vital role in preserving health. But C-section births, antibiotics and excessive hygiene have been disturbing our microbial balance and possibly contributing to intestinal ailments, obesity, allergies and autism. Deep in the Amazon basin, where traditional hunter-gatherers still live, researchers ...

An investigation of one of the first swine-origin H3N2 influenza cases detected in the United States in 2011 suggests that for each confirmed case, there may be many more that go undetected. The investigation, triggered by a case related to a Pennsylvania fair in August 2011, revealed 3 confirmed cases, 4 ...

It's time to get your flu shot. Or is it? The answer to that question depends on whom you ask. The sign in the pharmacy window might suggest flu season is already here, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone at least 6 months old to get a ...

More than 1.6 billion years ago, one cell engulfed another and put it to work. More specifically, a eukaryotic cell, the sort of cell that contains distinct structures with different functions, took in a blue-green bacterium that could do something it could not: use sunlight to make sugars. The ancient ...

t's a battleground down there—in the soil where plants and bacteria dwell. Even though beneficial root bacteria come to the rescue when a plant is being attacked by pathogens, there's a dark side to the relationship between the plant and its white knight. According to research reported by a University of ...

Scientists following the evolution of a single strain of bacteria reported that it underwent several steps of mutation, surprising in its complexity, to acquire the ability to use a new food source. The findings, reported Wednesday in the science magazine Nature, are the result of an experiment started 25 years ago ...

With 2,000 to 3,000 patients killed by necrotizing fasciitis each year, early diagnosis of the flesh-eating bacteria is of the utmost importance. That's what Russell Russo, an orthopedic surgeon at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, and his team are stressing in the September 2012 issue of Orthopedics Today. While the ...

In 1988, Richard Lenski, an evolutionary biologist now at Michigan State University, launched the longest running experiment on natural selection. It started with a single microbe–E. coli–which Lenski used to seed twelve genetically identical lines of bacteria. He placed each line in a separate flask, which he provisioned with a ...

Pancreatic cancer is highly lethal and difficult to detect early. In a new study, researchers report that people who had high levels of antibodies for an infectious oral bacterium turned out to have double the risk for developing the cancer. High antibody levels for harmless oral bacteria, meanwhile, predicted a ...

Lab-dish tests have raised hopes that a soil bacterium identified nearly 60 years ago could be a "very selective killer" of the germ that causes tuberculosis, a European journal reported on Monday. Pyridomycin, a natural antibiotic exuded by the bacterium Streptomyces pyridomyceticus, shows promise as a candidate to fight a drug-resistant ...

An experimental vaccine shows promise for protecting people against a nasty stomach virus known for causing outbreaks of diarrhea and vomiting on cruise ships, in nursing homes, and in other close quarters. The research is very early and much more testing is needed. But the injectable norovirus vaccine cleared its first ...

A new study of giant viruses supports the idea that viruses are ancient living organisms and not inanimate molecular remnants run amok, as some scientists have argued. The study may reshape the universal family tree, adding a fourth major branch to the three that most scientists agree represent the fundamental ...

I've never met anyone who buys organic food to get more vitamins and minerals, so it's unclear why the public has been treated to a series of studies -- most recently a meta-review out of Stanford University -- telling us that for the most part organics don't have more vitamins ...

Some gut microbes help the body absorb more dietary fat, which means their host takes in more calories from the same amount of food. “This study is the first to demonstrate that microbes can promote the absorption of dietary fats in the intestine and their subsequent metabolism in the body,” says ...

(another excerpt from Wired's Superbug blog) News from the ICAAC meeting: The “Indian superbug” NDM-1 — actually a gene which encodes an enzyme which confers resistance to almost all known antibiotics — has been found for the first time in a pet, somewhere in the United States. When you consider the close ...

(taken from Maryn McKenna's excellent blog in Wired) A final post from the ICAAC meeting, which concluded at one end of the Moscone Center in San Francisco Wednesday just as the Apple iPhone 5 launch was beginning at the building’s other end. (Definitely a crossing of geek streams.) There’s far too much ...

Biomedical scientists collaborating on translational research at two Buffalo institutions are reporting the discovery of a novel, and heretofore unrecognized, set of genes essential for the growth of potentially lethal, drug-resistant bacteria. The study not only reveals multiple, new drug targets for this human infection, it also suggests that the ...

In 1967, the United States joined the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in signing the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. The agreement, more casually known as the "Outer Space Treaty," remains ...

Researchers from the Univ. of Rochester and Texas A&M Univ. have found that, over a period of five months following the disastrous 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, naturally occurring bacteria that exist in the Gulf of Mexico consumed and removed at least 200,000 tons of oil and ...

Septic arthritis is a rapidly destructive joint disease, leading to irreversible damage of the cartilage, bone and surrounding soft tissue. Therefore, this infection requires rapid diagnosis and appropriate treatment. The diagnosis is challenging due to false-negative joint fluid cultures, delay until positive microbiology and overlap with other aseptic joint disorders. ...

Over the past fifteen years, Internet technology has significantly changed the landscape of public health surveillance and epidemic intelligence gathering. Disease and outbreak data is disseminated not only through formal online announcements by government agencies, but also through informal channels such as social networking sites, blogs, chat rooms, Web searches, ...

Public health officials provide the latest update on the H3N2, the new strain of influenza that appears to have jumped from swine to humans and has already infected nearly 300 people in the United States. Participant: Lyn Finelli, CDC, Atlanta, GA, United States

Clostridium difficile infection is an important cause of intestinal disease, primarily affecting hospitalized patients exposed to antibiotics. Infection has been associated with prolonged hospital stays and excess healthcare expenditures. In recent years, C. difficile infections have become more frequent, more severe and more difficult to treat. Participants discuss one promising ...

There is a long history of anecdotal evidence to suggest that cranberries and other alternative therapies to long-term antibiotics can prevent recurrent urinary tract infections but are they really as effective as antibiotics or even a viable alternative for people who do not want to take antibiotics for prevention. Researchers ...

Current influenza vaccines are limited because they can only stimulate immunity to specific strains of the virus, which is constantly evolving. This means a new vaccine must be developed every year to target the strains public health officials believe will be most prevalent that season. If an unforeseen strain emerges ...

Taken from the 2012 ICAAC meeting... Outbreaks of enteric disease are most common in highly populated areas. Caused by both bacteria and viruses that often reside in the food we eat, the water we drink, or on surfaces we touch, enteric diseases produce a variety of symptoms including nausea, severe stomach ...

Although as recently as 1980 measles was estimated to cause 2.6 million deaths globally, due to highly effective and safe vaccines, measles elimination has been achieved in a number of countries globally as well as in the region of the Americas. Expansion of measles control strategies and activities has resulted ...

Members of the ICAAC Program Committee give an overview of the ICAAC meeting and discuss sessions of particular interest. Participants: M. Lindsay Grayson, Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Australia Craig E. Rubens, Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Seattle, WA Michael J. Pucci, Achillion Pharmaceuticals, New Haven, CT

Since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy in the mid-1990s, HIV infection has evolved from a near-certain death sentence to a manageable, chronic disease. Still, little is known about the long-term effects of HIV on human health. Two studies being presented today on cardiovascular health and HIV suggest that ...

Seasonal flu vaccines are targeted for strains of the influenza virus that public health officials believe will be most prevalent in the upcoming season. While the vaccine primes the immune system to protect against those specific strains, what does it mean for other future strains of the virus. Researchers present ...

Sugary drinks help bad microbes grow in the human gut, according to a study published in the journal Obesity Reviews. This increase leads to many health complications like obesity and metabolic syndrome, raising risk of diseases associated with metabolic syndrome like diabetes. The study says western diet containing sugars, especially fructose, ...

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have developed a catheter that can kill most urinary bacteria, including most strains of Proteus bacteria – the most common cause of catheter infections. Importantly the antimicrobial catheter retains its activity for between six to twelve weeks, making it suitable for long-term use, unlike ...

Reconstructing the spread of killer diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) from person to person using DNA sequencing quickly identifies the origin and movement of pathogens. This approach is directly informing public health strategies to control infectious disease outbreaks, says a scientist speaking at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference ...

They look like works of modern art but these incredible images actually show some of the world’s deadliest diseases - including the Black Death and anthrax. Many of the specimens can have devastating affects on the human body and have caused major epidemics. But the bacteria, invisible to the naked eye, are ...

Dentists have long encouraged the use of fluoride to prevent cavities and tooth decay. But several studies have also found that other things, such as lollipops, raisins, licorice root and gum, may also help in the fight against tooth decay. And now, a new study is suggesting that coconut oil ...

The United States has reported the first known death caused by the H3N2 variant virus, the new swine flu that has been jumping from pigs to people there. And in another development that underscores how dynamic the intersection is between pigs, people and influenza viruses, health authorities in Minnesota announced Friday ...

A monoclonal antibody therapy developed by MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and tested in an animal model at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, prevents infection by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Researchers found that the human monoclonal antibody targeting the virus protected chimpanzees from HCV infection in ...

The vexing question above has provided Scott Fotheringham with fertile ground for his new book, The Rest is Silence. Benny is a grad student in New York City, a molecular biologist developing a very specialized strain of bacteria. The concept of bacteria eating plastic seems simple. Bacteria eat and digest discarded ...

As far as bacteria are concerned, other living creatures are just another niche to exploit, which means that pretty much every animal and plant has a set of bacterial pathogens that come along with it. These bacteria have made the animal in question their speciality, and are highly adapted to ...

Earlier this week, health officials reported that there are now 1,590 cases of West Nile virus confirmed in humans across the United States, and 66 deaths -- the most (through late August) since the mosquito-borne disease was first identified in 1999, Reuters reported. This year's unseasonably warm winter is at least ...

At least five hantavirus infections have been linked to the tent cabins in Yosemite's Curry Village. About 10,000 people who stayed in tent cabins at Yosemite National Park over the summer may be at risk for hantavirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday in a health ...

Breast milk promotes colonies of healthy bacteria in a newborn's intestinal tract that aid nutrient absorption and immune system development, a new study shows. Infant formula does not provide this benefit, which helps protect infants from infections and illnesses, the Duke University Medical Center researchers said. The team grew two strains of ...

The trickiest thing about legionella, the deadly bacterium that has killed nine people in Quebec City and sickened 158, is that it could be anywhere. It’s entirely possible there’s a species in your nasal passages right now. Chances are you’ll be fine. But for the very old, the very young, smokers or ...

Many people would be surprised to learn that bacterial cells in the digestive tract outnumber their own cells 10 to one. Most don’t know that each person has a unique mix of gut bacteria, like a fingerprint. And they certainly don’t know that giving this bacteria the royal treatment by eating a ...

The death toll from the outbreak of legionnaires’ disease increased by one to a total of nine in Quebec City on Wednesday, as public-health authorities sought additional help in their inspection of buildings that are suspected of harbouring the deadly Legionnella bacteria. Authorities also reported that the number of people infected ...

Bacteria that live in the soil seem to be swapping antibiotic-resistance genes with other, more dangerous bacteria — the ones that cause devastating infections in humans, a new study indicates. When a team of researchers analyzed bacteria they had grown from soil samples, they found the microbes were harboring seven genes ...

West Nile virus cases are up 40 percent since last week and may rival the record years of 2002 and 2003, federal health officials said Wednesday. So far this year, 1,590 cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 66 deaths. About half ...

Bacteria may be simple creatures, but unlike “higher” organisms they have a neat evolutionary trick. When the going gets tough, they can simply pick up and incorporate a loose bit of genetic material from their environment. It’s instant evolution, no time-consuming mutations required. This process, known as horizontal gene transfer, ...

Bacteria carried by tiny mites on the skin might be responsible for the common dermatological condition known as rosacea, researchers say. If this theory does prove to be true, then new and better treatments for rosacea may be on the way, according to a review published online Aug. 30 in the ...

Removing virulence factors from pathogenic bacteria could be a new way to fight infections, by taming rather than killing them. Also: thanks to epigenetics, learned behaviors may be inherited.

A gastrointestinal pathogen associated with fecal contamination was present in 97 of 129 water samples taken from four beaches on the Lake Erie coast of Ohio according to research published in the August issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Substantial numbers of beach-goers may be sickened by this pathogen, says Jiyoung ...

A study published in BMC Microbiology has looked at the prevalence of Campylobacter in skinless, boneless chicken breasts, tenderloins, and thighs. The meat was purchased in food stores in Alabama from 2005 to 2011. Campylobacter bacteria was found in 41% of the meat samples. This study reinforces the fact that ...

By discovering how certain viruses use their host cells to replicate, UC Irvine microbiologists have identified a new approach to the development of universal treatments for viral illnesses such as meningitis, encephalitis, hepatitis and possibly the common cold. The UCI researchers, working with Dutch colleagues, found that certain RNA viruses hijack ...

Vaccines and antibiotics may someday join caloric restriction or bariatric surgery as a way to regulate weight gain, according to a new study focused on the interactions between diet, the bacteria that live in the bowel, and the immune system. Bacteria in the intestine play a crucial role in digestion. They ...

The fatal outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in Quebec City continued Sunday, as officials are reporting two additional deaths linked to the bacterial infection. At least 104 people have been infected and eight killed in what has been the deadliest outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in Canada in 25 years. On Sunday, authorities from ...

The ambulance sped up to the red brick federal research hospital on June 13, 2011, and paramedics rushed a gravely ill 43-year-old woman straight to intensive care. She had a rare lung disease and was gasping for breath. And, just hours before, the hospital learned she had been infected with ...

Northwestern University scientists have discovered one of the ways the influenza virus disarms our natural defense system. The virus decreases the production of key immune system-regulating proteins in human cells that help fight the invader. The virus does this by turning on the microRNAs -- little snippets of RNA -- that ...

Considerable attention has been given to this week’s news about hospital (healthcare) acquired infections (HAI) at NIH with a “superbug.” * There has been probably misplaced criticism of NIH for not making its finding of transmission of a bacteria between patients public, as well as wonder at the high-tech tools that ...

Tattoos become much less appealing when they're infected. It's like when my friend Mitch got his eyebrow pierced in high school, which was obviously an attempt to look tough, but it ended up getting a huge, unsightly scab. Because he kept picking at the scab in his sleep, it simply ...

Two recent cases of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) show that municipal tap water can harbor the amoeba responsible for the fatal disease, according to CDC researchers. The deaths of two adults in Louisiana hospitals of infectious meningoencephalitis are the first recorded PAM cases in the country associated with the presence of ...

When a 43-year-old female lung transplant patient arrived at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in June 2011, the hospital’s infection control team was on high alert. The woman carried a “superbug” resistant to all but two antibiotics, and the NIH staff wanted to keep the dangerous bacteria contained. The ...

The recent West Nile virus outbreak is the largest ever seen in the United States, according to new numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of cases so far this year is the highest recorded through August since the disease was first detected in the United States ...

Acinetobacter baumanni, a pathogenic bacterium that is a poster child of deadly hospital-acquired infections, is one tough customer. It resists most antibiotics, is seemingly immune to disinfectants, and can survive desiccation with ease. Indeed, the prevalence with which it infects soldiers wounded in Iraq earned it the nickname "Iraqibacter." In the ...

Chimpanzees in African sanctuaries are catching human strains of drug-resistant staph, a new study finds. Experts warn that infected chimps could spread the deadly bug to other apes if reintroduced to the wild — or the pathogen could jump back to humans in a more dangerous form. Strains of staph (Staphlyococcus ...

Live bacteria are present in more than 90% of middle ear effusions, research shows. The present study strongly suggests bacteria and biofilms are important in the pathogenesis of otitis media with effusion (OME), according to Roger Bayston (University of Nottingham, UK) and colleagues. The findings, published in the International Journal of Pediatric ...

It's almost an evil twin story: a protein that steals electrons from iron in one microbe looks a lot like one that adds electrons in another microbe, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of East Anglia. Their survey of the genes of common groundwater bacterium ...

Scientists studying flu vaccines have identified ways to overcome an obstacle called "original antigenic sin," which can impair immune responses to new flu strains. Original antigenic sin (OAS) is a situation where the immune system is fighting with obsolete weapons and has trouble adapting. After encountering one viral strain, and then ...

A self-assembling nanoparticle designed to target tumour cells like a virus was unveiled today. Viruses are extremely effective at targeting cells and delivering proteins into them. Mimicking a virus should therefore be a very useful way to deliver drugs to cancerous cells. This morning at the American Chemical Society’s annual fall meeting ...

Just days after doctors successfully removed a tumor from Bailey Quishenberry's brain, the 14-year-old was spiraling downhill, delirious and writhing in pain from an entirely new menace. Her abdomen swollen 10 times its normal size and her fever skyrocketing, Bailey began wishing she could die, just to escape the agony. Bailey had ...

Political revolutionaries turn the world upside down. Scientific ones more often turn it inside out. And that, almost literally, is happening to the idea of what, biologically speaking, a human being is. The traditional view is that a human body is a collection of 10 trillion cells which are themselves the ...

Health officials have learned that cantaloupes are to blame for a salmonella outbreak that has infected 141 people in 20 states, sending 31 people to the hospital and killing two. More than a third of those salmonella Typhimurium cases happened in Kentucky, which is also where both deaths occurred, according to ...

Microbiologists have identified an entirely new class of virus that they believe is responsible for a mysterious condition that causes bizarre "drunken" behaviour and eventual death in snakes. Inclusion Body Disease (IBD) affects boa constrictors and pythons and causes them to first regurgitate food. They then display neurological problems, one of ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have identified a type of E. coli bacteria that may encourage the development of colon cancer. The Liverpool team had previously shown that people with colon cancer and with the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, have high numbers of a sticky type ...

Scientists at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are studying a possible natural solution to zebra mussel infestations. Researchers are using water from Lake Carlos in central Minnesota to mimic a natural environment for zebra mussels treated with Zequanox, which is made from a common soil bacteria that's toxic to zebra ...

Under a magnification of 200x, and using a lactophenol cotton blue mount fixation technique, this photomicrograph reveals some of the ultrastructural morphology exhibited by a Mucor sp. fungal organism. This image depicts two sporangia, a mature structure, which had ruptured, releasing its contents of spores (above), and a developing sporangium ...

Certain bacteria in the gut may be associated with various components of the metabolic syndrome, a study in an Old Order Amish community showed. All of the study participants belonged to one of three groups defined by the presence of separate communities containing six to 12 genera of bacteria, according to ...

The mayor of Dallas declared a state of emergency in the ninth largest U.S. city on Wednesday to combat the spread of West Nile virus infections, which have been more prevalent than usual in Texas and other states this year. There have been more cases of West Nile virus reported so ...

Americans have been on an antibacterial kick for the past several years. Our hand soap, dish soap, and body wash have morphed into an arsenal of bug-killing napalm, eliminating all but the heartiest of bacteria. And there are, indeed, some scary microbes crawling around out there—Staph and C. Diff, just to ...

A mysterious condition called Inclusion Body Disease (IBD) strikes captive boa constrictors and pythons, causing bizarre behavioral changes and eventually death. Scientists investigating an outbreak of IBD among snakes at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco report they may well have found a virus that is responsible for this common ...

Video of a T4 bacteriophages targeting E. coli bacteria.

Nearly two years after her teenage daughter lost all four limbs to a dangerous bloodstream infection, Patricia Kirven is stunned at how little most people know about sepsis. “You can ask the average person on the street and they don’t know what it is,” said Kirven, mother of Whitney Mitchell, now ...

It begins with a bite. The animal attacks, foaming at the mouth, and strikes again and again, seemingly invincible. Tiny organisms in the beast's saliva bind to receptors on your muscle cells and replicate. This may take days or even years. They migrate to the nervous system and travel into ...

In order to survive in complex and interesting environments in the wild, bacteria have a whole arsenal of chemical products that they make within the cell. These chemicals are used for signalling, defence and communication between bacterial cells. One particular group of these chemicals is called the polyketide group, which ...

Stomach ulcers could have handed in their chips - thanks to the humble potato. Scientists at Manchester University have discovered spuds contain unique antibacterial molecules that can treat the condition. Members of the university’s microbiology team now hope the substance, dubbed ‘potato juice’ could go into production as a daily ...

We might not have a cure for the common cold, but scientists have discovered a potentially powerful new treatment for much more dangerous flu viruses. Researchers at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and Crucell Vaccine Institute in the Netherlands say they have discovered a human antibody that protects against ...

One of the world's oldest vaccines now has a new use. Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, is an 80-year-old vaccine designed to tread tuberculosis. Bit it has now been found effective in treating long-term type 1 diabetes, which is on the rise worldwide. BCG has long been administered to ...

Scientists are predicting that the frequency of dust storms, on the rise in the last few years, will continue to increase. Some have also suggested that these storms might well be carrying a more hazardous payload than meets the eye. Among the dangers that experts say are blowing in the ...

By some estimates, a third of Earth's organisms live in our planet's rocks and sediments, yet their lives are almost a complete mystery. This week, the work of microbiologist James Holden of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and colleagues shines a light into this dark world. In the journal Proceedings of the National ...

This highly-magnified, digitally-colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicted numbers of virions from a Novel Flu H1N1 isolate. Thanks to the CDC's PHIL for this image.

Inflammation of the lower bowel in horses may result from microbial imbalances in the gut and not the overgrowth of an individual pathogen, Canadian research suggests. Researchers from the University of Guelph, in Ontario, set out to characterize the totality of microbes, known as the microbiome, in the faeces of healthy ...

From the Open University, a neat video highlighting seven amazing things microbes do.

Consider an all-too-common scenario: You're burning up from a high fever after a routine surgical procedure, and an infection specialist is called to help treat your problem. You assume that a short course of antibiotics will quickly turn things around. But the specialist candidly admits: "I'm sorry, I can't treat ...

Synthetic biology is getting a boost. So far, most researchers have designed their synthetic circuits using transcription factors found in bacteria. However, these don’t always translate well to nonbacterial cells and can be a challenge to scale. Now, researchers have come up with a new method to design transcription factors ...

The soil is not just a single environment. To human eyes it may look like a brown layer of plant mush that fits into the rocks, but for a living environment it is highly complex. Not only must the bacteria that live within it share their space with small animals, ...

Last year's German E. coli outbreak made headlines around the world in May and June as it sickened nearly 3,800 people and killed 50, distinguishing it as the single deadliest foodborne illness outbreak of all time. The outbreak was a dramatic entrance to the world stage for the microbe at ...

Only 29 human cases of a new strain of "swine" flu have been identified in two years, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is making sure it's prepared should the H3N2 strain become more widespread. "This virus is still principally a swine virus, but it doesn't seem to ...

Like quality-control managers in factories, bacteria possess built-in machinery that track the shape and quality of proteins trying to pass through their cytoplasmic membranes, Cornell biomolecular engineers have shown. This quality-control mechanism is found in the machinery of the twin-arginine translocation (TAT) pathway, which is a protein export pathway in plants, ...

Soil is the most species-rich microbial ecosystem in the world. From this incredible diversity, plants specifically choose certain species, give them access to the root and so host a unique, carefully selected bacterial community from which they then benefit in a variety of ways. To achieve this, the plant's immune ...

Rabies has been thought of as virtually 100-percent fatal unless treated immediately, but new research shows that a small number of isolated Peruvians have natural immunity from the animal-transmitted disease. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in 15 people living in the remote Amazonian region ...

Satirical newspaper 'The Onion' has published a spoof of the recent H3N8 news in mBio...

HIV is an exceptional adversary. It is more diverse than any other virus, and it attacks the very immune cells that are meant to destroy it. If that wasn’t bad enough, it also has a stealth mode. The virus can smuggle its genes into those of long-lived white blood cells, ...

Researchers in Newcastle and Singapore have identified a new type of white blood cell which activates a killing immune response to an external source -- providing a new potential target for vaccines for conditions such as cancer or Hepatitis B. Publishing in the journal Immunity, the team of researchers from Newcastle ...

Microbes that convert electricity into methane gas could become an important source of renewable energy, according to scientists from Stanford and Pennsylvania State universities. Researchers at both campuses are raising colonies of microorganisms, called methanogens, which have the remarkable ability to turn electrical energy into pure methane -- the key ingredient ...

Yale University Cancer Center scientists have developed a new class of proteins that inhibit HIV infection in cell cultures and may open the way to new strategies for treating and preventing infection by the virus that causes AIDS. The findings appear online in the Journal of Virology. AIDS slowly weakens the ...

The international AIDS conference in Washington has already made two points clear. There is no prospect that scientists will any time soon find the ultimate solutions to the AIDS epidemic, namely a vaccine that would prevent infection with the AIDS virus or a “cure” for people already infected with ...

Normally, the absence of oxygen means an absence of life. But in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, scientists noticed something curious happening in the water. Huge populations of methane-eating bacteria appeared out of nowhere, despite the fact that there had hardly been any of these bacteria ...

A single Vorticella species. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Huw Taylor, Professor of Microbial Ecology at the University of Brighton, presented his inaugural lecture on Thursday 21 June 2012 entitled: People, Places and Pathogens. Professor Taylor, who did his undergraduate degree in microbiology, said that the science of medical microbiology has delivered enormous benefits for human health. However, he ...

Manmade climate change is the main driver behind the unexpected emergence of a group of bacteria in northern Europe which can cause gastroenteritis, new research by a group of international experts shows. The paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday, provided some of the first firm evidence that ...

July 2012 Package Inserts Overstate Diagnostic TB Tests' Accuracy Clinicians and laboratory professionals often rely on manufacturers' package inserts to assess the accuracy of diagnostic medical tests. However, package inserts frequently greatly overstate such tests' accuracy, according to a case study of package inserts for tuberculosis (TB), which is published in the ...

oday, microprocessors are built with silicon. But tomorrow, they'll be built with something else. This past week, with a paper published in the academic journal Nature Communications, researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany and the Swedish research institute Acreo AB revealed a new means of building chips using graphene ...

Here's your vocabulary word for the week: zoonosis. It describes an infection that is transmitted between species. For example, the disease that the husband and wife team of Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy have written about in their new book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus. Wasik ...

In the battle against malaria, doctors may one day have a microscopic ally. New research suggests that genetically modifying a bacterium commonly found in the gut of mosquitoes that harbor the malaria-causing parasite can make the mosquitos less likely to carry the disease. If scientists can find a way to spread ...

Our days of crying over spoiled milk could be over, thanks to Cornell food scientists. Milk undergoes heat treatment -- pasteurization -- to kill off microbes that can cause food spoilage and disease, but certain bacterial strains can survive this heat shock as spores and cause milk to curdle in storage. Researchers ...

In a push to save thousands of mountain frogs threatened by a deadly fungal epidemic, biologists are treating hundreds of High Sierra tadpoles with an experimental bacterium they hope will preserve the species. The scientists this week backpacked over Bishop Pass into famed Dusy Basin, 11,300 feet high in Kings Canyon ...

Scientists at Stanford University and the J. Craig Venter Institute have developed the first software simulation of an entire organism, a humble single-cell bacterium that lives in the human genital and respiratory tracts. The scientists and other experts said the work was a giant step toward developing computerized laboratories that ...

Swarm of paramecia surrounding an unidentified protozoan. Taken from the Wistreich Collection.

There's a lot more going on in your gut than just digestion, absorption and excretion. Trillions of microorganisms inhabit your intestines. In fact, there are 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells in your whole body. And these little beneficial bugs are busy! Scientists are beginning to unravel how ...

Using stop-action imaging with high-resolution microscopes, UC Berkeley scientists were able to describe in detail for the first time the "castles" of bacteria that grow in humans and are often the cause of chronic, even fatal infections. In a paper published in the journal Science on Friday, researcher Veysel Berk outlined ...

Allowing mosquitos to feed on engineered strains of the symbiotic bacteria that naturally live in their midguts may provide the answer to preventing the malarial parasite Plasmodium from completing the relevant stages of its life cycle in the airborne host and being transmitted to humans, researchers claim. A team at ...

Gram-negative rods, possibly E. coli. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection.

Fido the dog and Ginger the cat need not worry about being replaced by a new baby — in fact, they could be helping parents raise healthier children. A new study finds that children who lived with dogs or cats during their first year of life got sick less frequently than ...

La Crosse virus has become the most common insect-borne viral disease in children, greatly surpassing the better-publicized West Nile virus. Also this week: cost management joins the medical curriculum. La Crosse Virus Outpaces West Nile West Nile virus infections may get all the headlines when it comes to mosquito-borne viral diseases in ...

What do beer, dogs and cats, and corn all have in common? All of them are the end products of the process of domestication. Almost everybody knows that a number of different animals and plants have been bred for qualities that benefit humans. But few people realize that a number ...

Scientists have discovered two viruses that appear to infect the single-celled microalgae that reside in corals and are important for coral growth and health, and they say the viruses could play a role in the serious decline of coral ecosystems around the world. These viruses, including an RNA virus never before ...

At an ill-fated press conference in 1984, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler boldly predicted an effective AIDS vaccine would be available within just two years. But a string of failed attempts - punctuated by a 2007 trial in which a Merck vaccine appeared to make people more vulnerable ...

Salmonella enterica is a leading cause of diarrhea illness worldwide, according to Sadhana Ravishankar, an assistant professor in the University of Arizona department of veterinary science and microbiology. Each year the tiny, rod-shaped species of bacteria with a love for rapid reproduction on human food causes a large number of food ...

A clever new imaging technique discovered at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals a possible plan of attack for many bacterial diseases, such as cholera, lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients and even chronic sinusitis, that form biofilms that make them resistant to antibiotics. By devising a new fluorescent labeling strategy ...

Two chicken vaccines have recombined to produce more virulent viruses in Sydney and Melbourne, research has found, prompting the regulator to examine new controls over the approval and use of veterinary vaccines. A study by a team from the Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health at the University of Melbourne and NICTA ...

Biologists at Georgia Tech have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern Escherichia coli (E.coli) bacteria. The researchers have observed the bacterium grow over more than 1,000 generations, allowing them to see "evolution in action". In a process called paleo-experimental evolution,Betül Kaçar, a Nasa astrobiology postdoctoral fellow ...

We are teeming with microscopic life. Scientists recently reported on the billions of bacteria and fungi that grow inside us, finding a lot of diversity from person to person — and from spot to spot on the human body. Those findings were in 242 young adults (ages 18 to 40) in ...

Gram-stained preparation of Bacillus subtilis showing rods, and spores (empty areas). (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection.

Researchers Jose Cordova of Yale University and Erich Astudillo of Chile’s Universidad de Santiago discovered a molecule they call Keep 32 that kills the bacteria responsible for all the trauma you suffered as a child, lying down blinded by the light as a masked man poked bits of metal in ...

To the left is a panel from a new paper in PLoS Genetics, Selection-Driven Gene Loss in Bacteria. The y-axis is selection, so above represents a positive selection coefficient, and below a negative one. The lineages above the x-axis then are more fit against the baseline wild type (selection ...

Scared of bird flu? How about the viral Rift Valley fever? These diseases and many others are animal diseases that have grown the ability to infect humans. They’re known as zoonoses. You heard it, zoonoses. And humanity’s ever-growing taste for livestock products could stoke the growth of these zoonoses: More ...

After 18 months of controversy, the official verdict is in: an arsenic-tolerant bacterium found in California’s Mono Lake cannot live without phosphorus. In 2010, a group led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a microbiologist now at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, reported online in Science1 that the Halomonadaceae bacterium GFAJ-1 ...

Toxoplasma gondii oocysts from cat feces. Taken from the Wistrich Collection.

Physicians who see patients outside of hospital systems, such as those working in private offices, contribute disproportionately to the spread of antibiotic resistance because they are more likely to prescribe drugs unnecessarily, a first-of-its-kind nationwide study that looked at patterns of antibiotic use and drug-resistant infections has found. A number of ...

It was a provocative finding: strange bacteria in a California lake that thrived on something completely unexpected — arsenic. What it suggested is that life, a very different kind of life, could possibly exist on some other planet. The research, published by a leading scientific journal in 2010, led to overheated ...

Scientists may have pinpointed a potential way to prevent the flu by identifying a protein that amps up the immune system, according to a new animal study. The synthetic protein, called EP67, is able to trigger an immune response to the "threat" of the flu virus within a couple of hours ...

The investigation of a mystery disease that has killed dozens of children in Cambodia is advancing after the discovery in patient samples of a virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease. The Institut Pasteur du Cambodge found enterovirus 71 in 15 of 24 patients sampled since mid-June, Philippe Buchy, head ...

Recent revelations about our microscopic partners and tenants are numerically startling, if not downright existential. Try these for starters: Most of the cells within your body are not human cells, and you are literally teeming with pounds of busy microbes, working to earn their keep while you scan a blog ...

Alien hunters take note: a global water ocean potentially bigger than all those on Earth combined, is sloshing beneath Titan's icy crust. Combined with the cocktail of organic chemicals already known to exist on Titan, abundant water could make the moon prime real estate for life – though more work must ...

A leading cause for meningitis and septicemia in the UK is meningococcus B (MenB) bacterium infection. Healthy children can become severely ill within just a few hours if they contract meningitis or septicemia, as both illnesses develop randomly and with alarming speed. It often occurs in babies, very young children ...

On a warm afternoon in summer we were sitting in the lecture theatre, learning about germs. A microbiologist was showing us slides of enormously magnified bacteria (“God, this is like bug Imax!” said the girl behind me). The lecturer had a cold; he was coughing dramatically. After a prolonged bout ...

A bacteria that is known to be associated with more than 80% of gastric and doudenal ulcers, may be associated with infant colic. The bacteria, Helicobacter Pylori (H.pylori), is found in the lining of the of the stomach wall. Dr. Abdelrazak Mansour Ali from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt evaluated 55 ...

As a closer view of PHIL 12265, this photograph depicts the colonial morphology displayed by Gram-negative Yersinia pestis bacteria, which was grown on a medium of sheep's blood agar (SBA), for a 72 hour time period, at room temperature. Y. pestis is the bacterium responsible for causing the infectious disease ...

Insects have been around for almost 400 million years. That’s plenty of time for evolution to fashion countless horrific deaths for them. Case in point: some insects die because a little worm vomits glowing bacteria inside their bodies. The worm is Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, a microscopic creature used by gardeners the world ...

Bloodstream infections caused by the MRSA superbug may be on the decline in communities across the U.S., according to a large study of military personnel. Previous data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a drop in infections contracted in healthcare settings. But the trajectory of community-onset MRSA, short ...

Scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio are investigating a potential new drug that could improve learning and memory during aging -- thanks to Easter Island? The drug, called rapamycin, comes from isolated bacterial products in the soil of the Polynesian island, known as the home to ...

In the search for new life, scientists have studied the depths of the ocean and the lips of steaming volcanoes. They've looked on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, and even planets beyond this solar system. Dr. David Relman went searching inside his own mouth. On a routine dental visit in ...

A team of dentists and scientists from Newcastle University are developing a new product from a marine microbe to protect dentures, teeth and gums from bacteria in the mouth. They are using an enzyme isolated from a marine bacterium Bacillus licheniformis found on the surface of seaweed which they were originally ...

Mothers with IgG antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii at delivery are at risk for later self-harm or suicide, particularly if they have higher titers against the parasite, a Danish study found. The risk of self-directed violent behavior was increased 1.53-fold (95% CI 1.27 to 1.85, Psk rose to 1.91 (95% CI 1.25 ...

The recent H1N1 flu pandemic was found to be particularly dangerous to obese people, and a Wayne State University researcher is looking for clues as to why. Emily Martin, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacy practice in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, has begun interviewing people hospitalized with ...

Studies suggest that infants who grow up with dogs in their home are less likely to develop asthma. Researchers may now have found one reason why. Pets, dogs in particular, may protect infants from the effects of a common virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Infants with severe RSV infections have an ...

A University of Illinois study shows that dietary fiber promotes a shift in the gut toward different types of beneficial bacteria. And the microbes that live in the gut, scientists now believe, can support a healthy gastrointestinal tract as well as affect our susceptibility to conditions as varied as type ...

A new test for 12 different types of bacteria that cause bloodstream infections has been approved by the FDA. The test is much faster than current laboratory techniques, and can pickup on signs of bacterial growth within hours of the infection starting. Current tests require waiting as long as four days, ...

Would you go to a drugstore for an AIDS test? Health officials want to know, and they've set up a pilot program to find out. The $1.2 million project will offer free rapid HIV tests at pharmacies and in-store clinics in 24 cities and rural communities, the Centers for Disease Control and ...

A scientific endeavour carried out by two French groups belonging to INSERM and CNRS at Aix-Marseilles University shows for the very first time that both bacterium adhesion to and bacterium motion on a surface are driven by the same mechanism (see paper in PNAS: "Wet-surface–enhanced ellipsometric contrast microscopy identifies slime ...

A new estimate places the number of people killed by the pandemic influenza A H1N1 strain worldwide at 284,400, about 15 times greater than the number of reported laboratory-confirmed cases, researchers found. But the estimate spans a range as low as 151,700 and as high as 575,400 during the first year ...

You can stop searching for a rainbow pooping unicorn now - if that's your thing - because scientists have come up with a way to bring that sort of colour to your very own toilet bowl. But the rainbow shades in your modified poo are all aimed at telling ...

The human gut is home to a teeming ecosystem of microbes that is intimately involved in both human health and disease. But while the gut microbiota is interacting with our body, they are also under constant attack from viruses. In a study published online in Genome Research , researchers have ...

Convulsions in children immunized with a CSL Ltd. (CSL) flu shot probably were caused by an excessive immune response to viral components in the vaccine, according to preliminary findings of a two-year study. Use in children younger than 6 years of CSL’s Fluvax vaccine, to protect against the three main influenza ...

Scientists may have hit gold in their fight against dengue. They have located a human antibody that can neutralise and kill its virus within two hours. Significantly, they have also identified a way to reproduce this antibody in large quantities, potentially opening the door to a cure for dengue infected patients. The ...

Last weeks post on the changing composition of bacteria in the vagina generated a lot of interest, and as there’s been quite a of talk about the human microbiome (all the bacteria that live on the human body) at the moment I thought I’d stick with the theme. This weeks ...

Scientists in the US have used an optical-frequency comb – a laser that emits light at a range of equally spaced frequencies, like the teeth on a comb – to monitor how well a device designed to kill dangerous bacteria does its job. The comb was used to measure the ...

Last week, scientists reported on a 5-year study of all the bacteria that inhabit the human body – 100 trillion of them, weighing 2 to 6 pounds total (in a 200-pound person) – and of 10,000 different types, though not all of them will reside in any one particular person. This ...

It is invisible to the naked eye and originated in the uninhabitable climes of Antarctica. This humble bacteria — known as Psychrophile — holds the potential to solve India's sanitation problem in the years to come. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is using these bacteria for the bio-digester ...

Two papers published this week, and one last month, reveal the pandemic potential of H5N1 "bird flu". One identifies four, another identifies five, genetic changes the virus would have to undergo before it could spread easily in humans, and the third paper suggests some of these changes are already evident ...

A rare type of deadly bacteria was found in two patients in a Rhode Island hospital in 2011, but swift treatment and infection control measures stopped any further spread, a new government report shows. The bacterium -- called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM)-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae -- is highly resistant to antibiotics and ...

A coating of selenium nanoparticles significantly reduces bacteria growth on polycarbonate, a material common in implanted medical devices. Selenium is an inexpensive element that naturally belongs in the body. It is also known to combat bacteria. Still, it had not been tried as an antibiotic coating on a medical device material. In ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed a new diagnostic test to detect the presence of dengue virus in people with symptoms of dengue fever or dengue hemorrhagic fever. The test, called the CDC DENV-1-4 Real Time RT PCR Assay, has been authorized by the Food and Drug ...

The NIH Human Microbiome Project has been a 5-year endeavor to produce community resources to support the field of human microbiome research. Although the HMP has already produced hundreds of peer-reviewed publications, in the past week 2 major HMP Consortium papers as well as 20+ companion papers were published ...

Canadian researchers are reporting a potential advance in the treatment of Ebola virus infection, one of the most deadly pathogens known to humankind. Researchers from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg are reporting that monkeys deliberately infected with Ebola were successfully saved with a cocktail of antibodies against the virus. Four of ...

It was an experiment with bacteria that emboldened Novozymes A/S (NZYMB) into stepping up disclosures about its work to pressure groups. The openness paid off, and now the manufacturer is part of a growing club pushing transparency worldwide. The maker of enzymes for chemical reactions was using microbes that show resistance ...

For a century, doctors have waged war against bacteria, using antibiotics as their weapons. But that relationship is changing as scientists become more familiar with the 100 trillion microbes that call us home — collectively known as the microbiome. “I would like to lose the language of warfare,” said Julie Segre, ...

The health of humans, animals, and the environment are inextricably interconnected. Disruption of the environment often creates new niches for the evolution of infectious diseases, and provides opportunities for the transmission of pathogens to animals or humans. The majority of infectious diseases that affect humans are acquired from animals. The ...

On the issue of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and animals, the first thing that comes to mind is livestock and other farm-based animals that are regularly fed antibiotics as growth promoters, but they are not the only source of resistance. Participants discuss studies showing that non-farm animals including pets, zoo animals ...

A future weapon in the battle against obesity and diabetes could come in the form of an oil derived from the seeds of wild almond trees, according to researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology. The key to the oil's potential lies in its ability to affect certain microorganisms living ...

Scientists have discovered when a cancer-killing virus is injected in the bloodstream it hitches a ride on blood cells and evades attack from the immune system, allowing it to reach cancer tumors, and start destroying cancer cells. They suggest this means it may be possible to use promising "viral therapy" ...

Antibiotics accounted for about a quarter of all pediatric prescriptions; amoxicillin leads the list. Overall, 263.6 million prescriptions were written for patients 17 and under in 2010, down 7% from 2002, finds the analysis of prescription claims databases by Food and Drug Administration researchers, published today in the journal Pediatrics. By ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital have identified commensal bacteria in the human intestine that produce a neurotransmitter that may play a role in preventing or treating inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease. We identified, to our knowledge, the first bifidobacterial strain, Bifidobacterium dentium, that is ...

Next time you enter a new hotel room, you might think twice before touching the light switch or reaching for the remote. Those are two of the top surfaces most likely to be contaminated with potentially sickening bacteria, according to a small new study aimed at boosting cleaning practices at the ...

The human microbiome consists of thousands of viral and microbial species which inhabit the human body and have co-evolved with us to protect against pathogens, regulate organ function and supply nutrients and other factors essential for health. When these members fall out of balance, it can lead to disease. ...

A survey of surfaces in hotel rooms finds television remotes to be among the most heavily contaminated with bacteria and items on housekeeping carts carry the potential to cross-contaminate rooms. Participants will discuss the results of this survey, the first step in to objectively assess sanitation by applying NASA’s ...

Traditionally, colonization of a host has been described in terms of a microbial community that does not affect the host, but recent research (such as the Human Microbiome Project) suggests that colonizing microbes are having an effect not only on the host, but on each other. Participants discuss how ...

University of Oregon scientists have discovered how the bacterium Helicobacter pylori navigates through the acidic stomach, opening up new possibilities to inactivate its disease-causing ability without using current strategies that often fail or are discontinued because of side effects. Their report -- online ahead of regular publication July 3 in the ...

They live on your skin, up your nose, in your gut - enough bacteria, fungi and other microbes that collected together could weigh, amazingly, a few pounds. Now scientists have mapped just which critters normally live in or on us and where, calculating that healthy people can share their bodies ...

Personally, I would have been perfectly happy to have been one of the volunteers for the Human Microbiome Project, in which researchers took a detailed census of all the bacteria, fungi and other microscopic life within us. Nor would I care if the contents of my innards were published for all ...

The risk of death from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia increased significantly with age, nursing home residence, and organ impairment, according to a retrospective review of 699 episodes of MRSA. Severe bacteremia also predicted an increased mortality risk, but the MRSA strain was not predictive. Consultation with an infectious disease specialist ...

An Oregon man appears to be suffering from the plague after he tried to rescue a mouse from the mouth of a feral cat. "This can be a serious illness," Emilio DeBess, state public health veterinarian, tells the Oregonian. "But it is treatable with antibiotics, and it's also preventable." The unnamed man, ...

Mansour Mohamadzadeh, Ph.D., a professor in the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and the UF College of Medicine, developed a genetically-modified form of the bacterium Lactobacillus acidophilus that greatly reduced abnormal gut inflammation and reversed colon cancer in mice. A mutant form of a meek microbe deals a gutsy ...

An international team of scientists, funded in the UK by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), has uncovered the structure of the protective protein coat which surrounds many bacteria like a miniature suit of armour. Their research, which is published June 10 in Nature, has far ranging consequences ...

Doctors spurned colistin for decades because it damages kidneys. Now the drug is deemed “critically important” and in demand worldwide to thwart the most obstinate infections. The 53-year-old medicine, also used as an additive in chicken feed, is back in favor as resistance to antibiotics escalates and doctors run out of ...

Imagine a Wyoming where the growing season could start weeks earlier, and where a late frost that so often bites crops couldn’t creep into plant’s veins. It may be possible, and University of Wyoming professor Gary Franc is trying to figure out how. It starts deep in plants, in a byproduct of ...

A mysterious and scattered outbreak of the E. coli bacteria is linked to 14 illnesses, including a child's death, health officials say. No form of contaminated food or other cause has been identified in the illnesses, which occurred in April and May, according to the Centers for Disease Control and ...

Here’s my weekly column, which will also run in Monday’s Health and Science section of the Philadelphia Inquirer Image is from Penn and reportedly shows a color enhanced tissue section from a healthy mouse. The mouse cells are green and bacterial cells are purple. Next time your digestive system malfunctions ...

Soil samples obtained from South American volcanoes have revealed a smattering of different microbe types that have somehow managed to survive in extreme conditions, the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder) announced in a June 8 press release. According to the university, the scientists behind the research discovered bacteria, fungi, and a different ...

New research published June 8 in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genomics reveals that the Malaysian parasitic plant Rafflesia cantleyi, with its 50cm diameter flowers, has 'stolen' genes from its host Tetrastigma rafflesiae. Analysis of these genes shows that their functions range from respiration to metabolism, and that some ...

Bacteria can use minerals in soil as electrical grids, which helps the microbes generate chemicals they need to survive, a new study says. The process involves different bacterial species trading electrons—negatively charged subatomic particles. Electrons are key to all life-forms, from microbes to people. For instance, the human body constantly swaps electrons ...

Bacteria in the gut play a crucial role in human health, and imbalances in bacterial populations can contribute to many disorders. New research suggests that fungi, though not as common in the intestines as bacteria, may also play a role in causing and modulating disease. The results could lead to new ...

At first glance it appears to be a minuscule marble spinning around its vertical axis. Look closer, however, and you see a stationary spherical membrane of fluid, just 3 microns across. It is the stuff inside the droplet that is rotating. This self-contained centrifuge has been created by blasting a ...

Health experts are calling for faster testing of the 9 million people worldwide estimated to be infected with tuberculosis each year after a study in China found drug-resistant strains were rife. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, gives the first nationwide estimate of the scale ...

The healthy human intestine is colonized with over 100 trillion beneficial, or commensal, bacteria of many different species. In healthy people, these bacteria are limited to the intestinal tissues and have a number of helpful properties, including aiding in the digestion of food and promoting a healthy immune system. However, when ...

People in the homes of children with skin and soft-tissue infections caused by the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus have a higher rate of methicillin-resistant S. aureus colonization than the general population, a new study finds. S. aureus infection often is referred to as Staph infection. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) -- a serious ...

Roughly 100,000 years ago, human evolution reached a mysterious bottleneck: Our ancestors had been reduced to perhaps five to ten thousand individuals living in Africa. In time, "behaviorally modern" humans would emerge from this population, expanding dramatically in both number and range, and replacing all other co-existing evolutionary cousins, such ...

In 1899, the country's microbiologists, or bacteriologists as they were known then, were focused on an outbreak of bubonic plague in New York harbor. As if that weren't enough, ongoing concerns prevailed about farm animal diseases being transmissible to humans through dairy and meat products. And with typhoid fever and ...

Boasting more than 39,000 members worldwide – representing 26 disciplines along with a division dedicated to microbiology educators – ASM is a major actor in microbiological sciences. Professor David C Hooper MD, President of the Society, highlights the breadth of their influence Could you outline the circumstances that brought about ...

A simple, cheap dose of zinc helps the recovery of newborns suffering from bacterial infections such as pneumonia and meningitis, according to an Indian study reported on Thursday in The Lancet. Doctors gave 10-milligram daily supplements of zinc to 332 babies who were being given antibiotic treatment at hospitals in New ...

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), poised to start testing beef trim for six non-O157 strains of pathogenic Escherichia coli next week, today released documents that spell out some expectations for the program and make clear that much remains to be learned about the risk. In a notice to be published ...

Computer-designed proteins are under construction to fight the flu. Researchers are demonstrating that proteins found in nature, but that do not normally bind the flu, can be engineered to act as broad-spectrum antiviral agents against a variety of flu virus strains, including H1N1 pandemic influenza. "One of these engineered proteins has ...

At an upcoming art exhibit, glowing images of heavenly objects — stars, galaxies, nebulae and remnants of supernovae — will have unusual frames: the clear rims of Petri dishes, the sort typically used to grow microbes. There's no coincidence here. The images of these astronomical structures have been created from the ...

A TEAM from Murdoch University, The Australian Institute of Marine Science and James Cook University, examined the diversity and community structure of coral related bacteria on Ningaloo Reef before and after coral spawning. Using DNA sequencing, three coral species Acropora tenuis, Pocillopora damicornis and the non-reef building coral Tubastrea faulkneri, were ...

Scientists at the University of Leeds are exploring ways to use magnetic bacteria to build biocomputers of the future. Meanwhile, another group of researchers, reporting in Science, write that they have unearthed deep-sea microbe that live off nutrients from the dinosaur age. This NPR segment from Science Friday is available to ...

It may not be the latest style in bovine bling, but researchers at Princeton University say a golden tattoo attached to a cow’s tooth could one day tell you something about your health. The remote sensing device has the ability to detect a single bacterium, and to demonstrate, scientists at Princeton ...

It’s all over the news: a healthy young woman in Georgia has been attacked by “Flesh Eating Bacteria.” Thankfully, she’s finally off of a ventilator. She’s still critically ill, even after undergoing several heroic surgical procedures to remove dead tissue. There will be a lot of rehab in her future, ...

Men’s offices have more bacteria than women’s offices. Not only that: Offices in New York City house more bacteria than those in San Francisco. These are among the findings of a new study in the journal PLoS One that looks at bacteria in more than 90 offices in three cities — ...

In the search for technology by which economically competitive biofuels can be produced from cellulosic biomass, the combination of sugar-fermenting microbes and ionic liquid solvents looks to be a winner save for one major problem: The ionic liquids used to make cellulosic biomass more digestible for microbes can also be ...

Buried under the seafloor for 86 million years, a bacterial community lives so slowly it's still surviving on a "lunch box" from dinosaur days, a new study says. (See marine-microbe pictures.) It's been known since the 1990s that microbes can live trapped in ocean sediments for millions of years, but until ...

A spice used in curry dishes helps to prevent infection and now scientists think they've got a lead on how. Curcumin is a compound found in turmeric, a flavourful, orange and yellow spice that is a key ingredient in South Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine. The spice has also been used ...

Although the vast majority of sinus infections are caused by viruses, bacteria are likely to be the culprits in specific circumstances, and in those instances, antibiotics should be used.
 This information comes from a new guideline issued by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) focusing on acute bacterial rhinosinusitis in ...

Giving the flu vaccine to pregnant women may bring significant benefits to their babies even before birth, a new study has found. Canadian researchers studied the records of 55,570 mothers of singletons, of whom 23,340 were vaccinated during pregnancy from November 2009 through April 2010. Compared with unvaccinated mothers, women who ...

I was in New York on 11 September 2001, standing near one of the TV screens in the media section of Unicef's communication division, where I headed up Unicef's global communication work on immunisation. As the second plane crashed into the twin towers, we were quickly evacuated out of Unicef ...

E Pluribus Unum, the de facto motto of the United States, could just as well apply to biofilm-forming bacteria. Bacterial biofilms are far more resistant than individual bacteria to the armories of antibiotics we have devised to combat them. Now Tim Holm Jakobsen and Michael Givskov of the University ...

As the lakefront officially opens to swimmers Friday, the Lake Michigan shoreline joins the cutting edge in the war on bacteria after decades of using day-old water samples to decide whether to close beaches. In Chicago, the Park District will use a new high-tech system that uses computer software to give ...

In multicellular organisms it is essential that every cell behaves and does the job it was produced to perform. The survival of a multicellular organism depends on this - every cell in your body is tightly controlled in terms of how big it can grow (fairly big), when it ...

Most people are fascinated by the colorful and exotic coral reefs, which form habitats with probably the largest biodiversity. But human civilisation is the top danger to these fragile ecosystems through climate change, oxygen depletion and ocean acidification. Industrialisation, deforestation and intensive farming in coastal areas are changing dramatically the ...

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) is proud to announce the 2012 award laureates. The awards will be presented during the 112th General Meeting of the ASM, June 16-19, 2012 in San Francisco, CA. Abbott Award in Clinical and Diagnostic Immunology honors a distinguished scientist in the field of clinical or ...

It wasn't so long ago that antibacterial products, from soaps to hand gels to wipes for your kitchen counter, became ubiquitous in our grocery stores and our daily lives. Not long afterwards, though, we started hearing reports that these products and their even more powerful cousins, antibiotic prescriptions, were actually ...

A new study of Greek patients shows that overgrowth of bacteria in the gut is definitively linked to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). It is the first to use the "gold standard" method of examining gut bacterial cultures to connect bacteria to the cause of a disease that affects some 30 ...

Drinking a daily glass of red wine not only tastes good to many people, but it's also good for the bacteria lining your large intestine. A new Spanish study suggests that sipping about 9 ounces of Merlot or a low-alcohol red wine changed the mix of good and bad bacteria ...

Federal land managers have rejected an application by a Colorado company to use bacteria to produce methane from northeast Wyoming coal beds. Luca Technologies Inc. wants to use a process called methane farming in which water and chemicals are injected into a coal seam, activating microbes that live in the coal. ...

You've probably heard of necrotizing fasciitis, also known as flesh-eating bacteria. But bacteria do not actually eat human flesh. They're actually trying to gobble up something a lot weirder. Here are ten of the stranger things bacteria naturally (and unnaturally) eat. You'll never look at dirty underwear the same way ...

Baby's guts have different bacteria living inside them based on if they are bottle or breast-fed. A new study indicates these bacterial differences could lead to differences in their immune systems. "The findings show that human milk feeding promotes the beneficial microbe population in the gut and crosstalk between these bacteria ...

Researchers have uncovered what makes one particular strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) so proficient at picking up resistance genes, such as the one that makes it resistant to vancomycin, the last line of defense for hospital-acquired infections. They report their findings in mBio, the online open-access journal of the ...

The plague, bacterial dysentery, and cholera have one thing in common: These dangerous diseases are caused by bacteria which infect their host using a sophisticated injection apparatus. Through needle-like structures, they release molecular agents into their host cell, thereby evading the immune response. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for ...

Once upon a time, tasters were employed by the well-to-do, in order to check that their food or drink wasn't poisonous. Today, there are electronic biosensors that can do more or less the same thing. Unfortunately, as was no doubt sometimes the case with the tasters, the biosensors can’t always ...

Microbes living at the edges of Arctic ice sheets could help researchers pinpoint evidence for similar microorganisms that may have evolved on Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Enceladus, researchers say. Scientists are investigating the receding edge of ice sheets on Earth to study the release of methane there. Methane is ...

A joint team of scientists have identified and determined how a tropical rainforest microbe is able to endure high concentrations of an ionic liquid used to dissolve cellulosic biomass. Their discovery may provide a basis for engineering ionic liquid tolerance into strains of fuel-producing microbes for a more efficient biofuel ...

The same tobacco leaves that kill hundreds of thousands of smokers every year may hold the key to preventing Parkinson’s disease, according to new research from the University of Louisville. University researchers say their findings stem from the puzzling question of why smoking appears to lower the risk for developing the ...

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have opened the way for more accurate research into new ways to fight dangerous bacterial infections by proving a long-held theory about how bacteria communicate with each other. Researchers in the University's School of Molecular Medical Sciences have shown for the first time that the ...

The Claim: A lab-concocted strain of ferret flu could become a doomsday weapon or bioterrorist threat. The Contrarian: Wendy Orent, author of Plague, says the much-hyped fears are unfounded: The new strain presents no danger to humans but reveals a great deal about the transmission of flu. Deadly H5N1 avian flu, long ...

Dr Achim Schmalenberger, a lecturer in microbiology at University of Limerick (UL), has been awarded a €75,000 Marie Curie grant by the European Commission to take his soil microbiology research to the next level. The Marie Curie Fellowship itself is a start-up research grant for researchers who are beginning their first ...

It’s official: Fish pedicures aren’t just a bizarre beauty ritual with shady animal-welfare considerations, they’re also downright dangerous to your health, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Wednesday, the federal agency published a report by U.K.’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science, which examined ...

Antibiotics are still better than probiotics at preventing urinary tract infections, but at least "good bacteria" don't add to a person's antibiotic resistance, a new study concludes. Recurring UTIs are common among some women and low-dose antibiotics are sometimes used to prevent them. The worry is that overuse of the drugs ...

Back when the dinosaurs ruled the Earth, some hardy bacteria took up residence at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Eighty six million years later, they're still there. And a new study says they're living out the most Spartan lifestyle known on this planet. They live in a place called the ...

All of us use water and in the process, a lot of it goes to waste. Whether it goes down drains, sewers or toilets, much of it ends up at a wastewater treatment plant where it undergoes rigorous cleaning before it flows back to the environment. The process takes time, ...

Squishing a stack of virus sheets generates enough electricity to power a small liquid crystal display. With increased power output, these virus films might one day use the beating of your heart to power a pacemaker, the researchers behind them say. Piezoelectric materials build up charge when pushed or squeezed. These ...

MBTA officials are planning on using small amounts of dead bacteria will be used - a few ounces, such as the amount in a sugar packet - to test biosensors that were installed in December. The testing will begin sometime this summer and reaction is decidedly mixed. MBTA riders voiced their ...

Russian scientists have now poured 60 tonnes of freon and kerosene down the four-kilometre bore hole that plunges through the ice above Lake Vostok in Antarctica. This will stop the hole freezing up during the long Antarctic winter. When summer comes, the Russian team will return to drill the last ...

Bacteria can break down hydrocarbons in the soil, but how quickly the compounds degrade depends on how rapidly they reach the bacteria. Fibrous networks of fungi and related organisms might be able to help, researchers have discovered. Threads in these networks, which transport nutrients through the organisms’ bodies, also transport ...

When members of a travel soccer team in Oregon fell ill last year, the details of how the disease spread through the team were mysterious. Kimberly Repp, an epidemiologist in Washington County, Oregon, describes the medical detective work that led epidemiologists through the chain of transmission of the norovirus.

A panel of U.S. experts has recommended federal approval of the first drug shown to prevent HIV — the virus that causes AIDS. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel held two separate votes Thursday on recommending the drug Truvada for healthy people at high risk of AIDS — one ...

The secret to Madonna’s staying power may be surprisingly simple: gardening. What the pop star does involves no trowel or soil. Thanks to dishes of fermented soy beans, millet and brown rice prepared by her personal chef, Mayumi Nishimura, Madonna practices a form of inner horticulture -- cultivating her intestinal flora ...

Ron Fouchier (pictured), of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, is the lead author of a controversial paper which lays out how deadly H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, can be made deadlier still. He believes this information should be widely disseminated, so that biologists can work on drugs or ...

The first study using cultivation independent sequencing of the microorganisms in the adolescent male urinary tract has revealed that the composition of microbial communities colonizing the penis in young men depends upon their circumcision status and patterns of sexual activity. This study, published Friday in the online journal PLoS One, is ...

Beer discovered two years ago onboard a shipwreck from the mid-1800s could possibly be recreated using living bacteria discovered in the brew, Finnish researchers announced last Thursday. According to Terhi Kinnunen of Reuters, Annika Wilhelmson from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland said that chemical analysis of the beer, which was ...

From tiny villages in developing nations to suburban kitchens in the United States, dangerous strains of E. coli bacteria sicken millions of people each year - and kill untold numbers of children. Now, new research from the University of Michigan Health System gives scientists a better understanding of what is going ...

Lill-Karin Skaret, a 67-year-old grandmother from Namsos, Norway, was traveling to a lakeside vacation villa near India's port city of Kochi in March 2010 when her car collided with a truck. She was rushed to the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, her right leg broken and her artificial hip so ...

Having lower levels of a certain type of gut bacteria, which may be associated with eating too little protein, could lead to obesity in kids, researchers found. Low concentrations of Bacteroides fragilis group bacteria were linked with a greater likelihood of being obese using two different methods of assessing the bacteria ...

One in every six cancers worldwide is caused by an infection that is preventable or treatable, according to new estimates published in the journal Lancet Oncology. The research indicates infections are attributable for approximately 2 million new cancer cases every year. "Infections with certain viruses, bacteria, and parasites are one of ...

Computer virus destroyed your hard drive? Don't worry, some day bacteria might build you a bigger and better one. Hard drives store data on discs coated with a metallic film divided into tiny magnetic regions, each of which stores a single bit - the more regions you can squeeze on to ...

Taking probiotics - strains of "good" bacteria - on top of a course of antibiotics may help ward off the diarrhea that often comes with antibiotic treatment, according to a U.S. review of past studies. When researchers, whose findings appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, combined trials of ...

A decline in the variety of life — including the plants and animals that live around us, as well as the microbes on our bodies — may play a role in the rapid rise in allergies and asthma, indicates new research. The study focused on a predisposition for allergies among 118 ...

Highly-targeted nanoparticles that deliver huge doses of existing antibiotics could be used to overload the defenses of drug-resistant bacteria, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and MIT reported in the journal ACS Nano. The authors explained that the development of novel antibiotics that can be used effective for a growing ...

When John Mayer sang “Your Body is a Wonderland,” he probably wasn’t talking about the trillions of microbes that live all over your skin and inside every orifice you have to offer—but it does pretty much describe things. In the last decade or so, scientists have confirmed that we’re just ...

Volcanoes bring death and destruction, but out of the ashes life soon finds fertile ground. A unique experiment is sifting through floating debris from an ongoing volcanic event to see how microbes move in. The results may help in assessing a recent hypothesis that the first life forms may have ...

Counterfeit booze confiscated by trading standards officers was used to create electricity in Alfreton last week. Seven hundred litres of “Drop Vodka” was poured into silos at Severn Trent’s Alfreton sewage works where microbes consume human waste and create methane, which is then burned to produce electricity. A van containing 900 bottles ...

“I SING the body electric,” Walt Whitman wrote in 1855, inspired by the novelty of useful electricity, which he would live to see power streetlights and telephones, locomotives and dynamos. In “Leaves of Grass,” his ecstatic epic poem of American life, he depicted himself as a live wire, a relay ...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will unveil plans Wednesday to begin acting more quickly to prevent outbreaks of E. coli illnesses by tracking contaminated ground beef to its source as soon as a preliminary test detects the bacteria, according to a government document. The USDA now waits for confirmation tests before ...

Bacteria may be tiny little micro-organisms but like any other living creature there are certain molecules that they need for survival. No matter what niche a bacterial colony occupies, it eventually requires a source of iron. For bacteria that live within the human body, there is one incredibly iron-rich molecule ...

Algal blooms can considerably interfere with summer holidays by the sea. In the coastal zone of temperate regions a spring algal bloom is not a sign of excessive nutrient input, but most of all a consequence of the more intense solar irradiation in spring. When algal blooms end, the algae ...

A lab researcher apparently killed by the bacteria he was studying at the San Francisco VA Medical Center had dedicated himself to combating fatal diseases after a relative's death, said those who knew him. Richard Din, 25, died on Saturday less than a day after he fell ill from a fast-moving ...

The researchers say their findings could lead to the development of new anti-infective drugs as alternatives to antibiotics whose overuse has led to resistance. University of Manchester researchers studied Listeria – a potentially deadly group of bacteria that can cause listeriosis in humans when digested – and found they are able ...

Over the past several decades, scientists have faced challenges in developing new antibiotics even as bacteria have become increasingly resistant to existing drugs. One strategy that might combat such resistance would be to overwhelm bacterial defenses by using highly targeted nanoparticles to deliver large doses of existing antibiotics. In a step ...

State and federal health officials are investigating how a rare and virulent bacteria strain appears to have killed a young researcher at a VA Hospital's infectious diseases lab in San Francisco, setting off alarms that the man's friends and fellow researchers also may have been exposed. The 25-year-old laboratory researcher at ...

A compound in garlic is 100 times more effective than two popular antibiotics at fighting the Campylobacter bacterium, one of the most common causes of intestinal illness, researchers at Washington State University have found. The discovery opens the door to new treatments for raw and processed meats and food preparation surfaces. “This ...

Scientists using nanotechology at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry have created the first cavity-filling composite that kills harmful bacteria and regenerates tooth structure lost to bacterial decay. Rather than just limiting decay with conventional fillings, the new composite is a revolutionary dental weapon to control harmful bacteria, which co-exist ...

It’s an exciting time for ecologists who study microbes. DNA sequencing has grown so cheap and fast that they can run around identifying bacteria living just about anywhere they can reach with a cotton swab. Turns out, bacteria are everywhere, even in the cleanest houses, and scientists are starting to ...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be releasing bacteria into the MBTA tunnels to test the safety of the subway. The DHS has installed sensors in the MBTA system to detect biological agents and they’ve been testing to see how the air moves. Now they want to release particles in the ...

If you make your own yogurt, there's a chance your yogurt could outlive you. That's because some bacteria that grow and feed on the sugar in milk – the process that ferments milk into yogurt — can procreate indefinitely in new generations of yogurt. But not all yogurts have these immortal powers. ...

Breastfeeding may help a baby’s gut develop a wider range of healthy bacteria, which is critical for intestinal tract and in immune system development, according to a new study. The findings, published in the journal Genome Biology, show that the bacteria in babies’ guts were linked to changes in expression ...

Efforts to detect and halt the global spread of drug-resistant bacteria are being hindered by a poor understanding of the limitations of crucial laboratory tests. Because infected patients need to be isolated quickly to avoid spreading infections, the failure to identify antibiotic-resistant pathogens is increasing the risk of untreatable outbreaks, ...

Conventional wisdom says that in order for a species of insect to develop resistance to an antibiotic, several generations have to pass, whereby genes from those that have some natural resistance pass them on to their offspring. But sometimes conventional wisdom fails to take into account how some bugs can ...

A new brain cancer vaccine tailored to individual patients by using material from their own tumors has proven effective in a multicenter phase 2 clinical trial at extending their lives by several months or longer. The patients suffered from recurrent glioblastoma multiforme—which kills thousands of Americans every year. These results, to ...

Measles cases are spiking sharply in the U.S., the CDC reported today. The 222 cases and 17 outbreaks seen in 2011 are nearly four times the median of 60 cases and four outbreaks per year seen over the last decade. A third of patients were hospitalized.

Prof. Pamela Ronald, a Professor in Plant Pathology at University of California, Davis and director of Grass Genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute, studies genes that control the plant response to stress. In her presentation for the Frontiers in Life Sciences symposium at Cornell University, Ronald described the isolation of a ...

Self-tests for bacterial vaginosis (BV) are reasonably accurate (73% sensitive and 67% specific for a pH-based test and 40% sensitive and 90% specific for a self-sialidase test when compared with a clinical diagnosis using modified Amsel criteria). The pH-based test has been available over the counter since 2001 and may ...

Certain Salmonella bacteria, the microbes that cause food poisoning, have the potential to become as much as 100 times more virulent than normal, recent research has found. In the study, these super-bugs overcame the protective effects of a Salmonella vaccine, killing vaccinated mice. The scientists found that some of ...

Bacteriophages, a class of viruses that only attack bacteria, have been controversial ever since their discovery by a brash, young, self-taught researcher named Felix d’Herelle nearly a century ago. In the 1920s and ’30s, before the advent of antibiotics, doctors using phage therapy reported near miraculous cures for infections, even at ...

A study published in BioMed Central's Biology Direct journal reports the existence of a previously undetected group of viruses and, more importantly, a new type of viral genome that could have huge implications for theories of viral emergence and evolution. Viruses are the most abundant organisms on earth, yet little is ...

Last week the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to phase out routine use of antibiotics in farm animals, saying the practice produces dangerous drug-resistant bacteria that can infect humans. Farmers have been feeding antibiotics to animals for decades, and the FDA has struggled to curb the practice for at ...

In a worrisome finding, an ongoing survey at Sassoon hospital reveals that three per cent of bacterial infections in samples collected from patients over the past two-three months show total resistance to antibiotics. Th study showed that three per cent of microbiologically confirmed infections seen in patients’ blood, urine and pus ...

New research shows that killer whales are inhaling bacteria, fungi and viruses once believed to be found only on land. Some of the pathogens are highly virulent. And some are even antibiotic-resistant. The scientists followed the killer whales by boat, trying to catch the precise moment the animals broke the surface. Then, ...

Contrary to what had been "accepted" thinking by many, there is no conclusive evidence that gum disease causes heart attacks and strokes, or that treating gum disease will improve heart disease, according to a new scientific statement by the American Heart Association. Gum disease is a major reason that adults lose ...

Pirates used to say that “dead men tell no tales.” Of course, the buccaneers had never heard of the polymerase chain reaction. Dead men turn out to be loaded with information if you can get your hands on them — or better yet, on small preserved pieces. The genomics revolution, two ...

The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), which attacks the immune system and leaves infected individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections. AIDS and HIV-1 are thought to have a relatively short history in humans, with the first infections likely occurring around the turn of ...

The next new acne treatment may be found in the produce section of your food store. Largely due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties, the herb thyme -- which is found with other herbs in the produce section of most food stores -- may well earn itself a place in the ...

In a new study, scientists have determined a possible link between exposure to a common component of urban air pollution and a change in the function of important immune cells that protect against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. In their finding, a team of researchers, led by Dr. Stephan Schwander, ...

The Haitian government along with international partners including the World Health Organization launched a vaccination campaign against cholera on Saturday targeting 100,000 people in vulnerable areas of the impoverished Caribbean country. The program was launched in the slum area of Cite de Dieu, in the Haitian capital, where health practitioners are ...

You first notice a bump — a tender, cherry red bruise. Over the next 12 hours, the center of this painful spot on your leg becomes dark violet in color. A day later this raised red bump ruptures and fluid oozes forth. I hope you are on the way to ...

Boaters, anglers and anyone bold enough to swim in Baltimore's troubled harbor will soon be able to get timely information about whether they're risking an upset stomach or infection from splashing in water fouled with sewage leaks and other pollution. Starting this month, the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper, Tina Meyers, plans to ...

Children younger than 10 likely will be the most susceptible if a variant of the influenza A (H3N2) virus -- dubbed A (H3N2)v -- develops the ability to transmit easily among humans, researchers found. Since August 2011, there have been 12 cases of infection with the variant -- which contains genes ...

The specific mechanisms by which humans and other animals are able to discriminate between disease-causing microbes and innocuous ones in order to rapidly respond to infections have long been a mystery to scientists. But a study conducted on roundworms by biologists at UC San Diego has uncovered some important clues ...

A recent discovery of "hypervirulent" Salmonella bacteria has given University of California, Santa Barbara researchers Michael Mahan and Douglas Heithoff a means to potentially prevent food poisoning outbreaks from these particularly powerful strains. Their findings, in a paper titled "Intraspecies Variation in the Emergence of Hyperinfectious Bacterial Strains in Nature," ...

Organised by the Royal Society in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Foundation for Vaccine Research with support from the American Society for Microbiology, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Fondation Mérieux, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Institut Pasteur, and the Society for General Microbiology. ...

No place on Earth demonstrates the resilience or inventiveness of life quite like Lechuguilla Cave, whose subterranean tunnels stretch for 130 miles through Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Deep in the cave's most arid recesses, deprived of all sunlight and mostly starved of life-giving water, a lush garden of ...

As the world’s athletes limber up for the forthcoming Olympic games in London, infectious-disease experts are preparing for their own trials. Their competition is with the diseases that millions of athletes, officials, media and spectators bring with them as they converge from across the globe on the UK capital. There is ...

In less than 30 years, there may be nothing left of the Titanic but a heap of “rusticles,” warns researcher Henrietta Mann, who has spent four years researching bacteria gnawing on its sunken hull. A scientific expedition in 1991 to the disintegrating wreck some 12,400 feet (3,780 meters) to the ocean ...

The dust is beginning to settle on the months-long controversy over two studies in which the H5N1 avian influenza virus was modified to be transmissible between mammals. But scientists and authorities still need to address the lack of international oversight for studies in which pathogens are deliberately made more dangerous, ...

"ACHOO!" A sniffling friend is sneezing just inches away. You would love to cover your face or run away, but in the interests of politeness all you can do is try not to inhale in their direction and hope your immune system is on the case. Some people seem to ...

Researchers have determined that bacteria are present in the bladders of some healthy women, which discredits the common belief that normal urine is sterile. These findings were published in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology by researchers at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM). "Doctors have ...

Scientists have managed to reverse type 1 diabetes (T1D) in experimental mice by giving the animals an oral course of harmless gut bacteria that had been engineered to secrete the whole proinsulin autoantigen (PINS) and the immunomodulatory human cytokine IL-10 (hIL10). An international team led by scientists at the KU ...

A previously unknown serine protease forms part of the antibacterial defence arsenal of neutrophil granulocytes. Neutrophil granulocytes comprise important defences for the immune system. When pathogenic bacteria penetrate the body, they are the first on the scene to mobilise other immune cells via signal molecules, thereby containing the risk. To this ...

Enceladus, Saturn’s 318-mile-wide moon that’s become famous for its ice-spraying southern jets, is on astronomers’ short list of places in our own solar system where extraterrestrial life could be hiding — and NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is in just the right place to try and sniff it out. On March 27, Cassini ...

Lapses in health measures during the second season that the 2009 H1N1 flu virus circulated in England probably contributed to a heavier disease burden—marked by more deaths and hospitalizations—than during the 2009-10 pandemic, researchers reported today. The authors said the pattern is worrying, especially because the health community and the public ...

The therapy, which targets a molecule found in 90 per cent of all cancers, could provide a universal injection that allows patients' immune systems to fight off common cancers including breast and prostate cancer. Preliminary results from early clinical trials have shown the vaccine can trigger an immune response in patients ...

Streptococcus bacteria, which causes strep throat and scarlet fever in children, could be the cause of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a team of researchers have claimed. When the bacteria strikes, it invades the immune system causing it to turn antibodies into proteins that attack human tissue including the heart, joints and particularly ...

A North Carolina State University researcher says parents getting ready for Easter holiday activities should be careful that their children aren't putting themselves at risk for salmonella. Professor Ben Chapman says baby chicks and eggs can both carry the illness. This month, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said ...

Retired university professors typically rest on their laurels after many years of teaching and research and take it easy. Not so for Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine emeritus professor Nathan Citri. Two decades after his retirement, the veteran microbiology expert has developed a novel kit enabling speedy detection of multidrugand ...

Each of us has trillions of bacteria in our guts. These communities vary greatly between individuals, but a paper published in Nature last year1 indicated that they fall into just three distinct types — enterotypes — defined by their bacterial composition (see ‘Gut study divides people into three types’). Each ...

Food safety officials are investigating whether raw fish in sushi and other foods is responsible for a multi-state Salmonella outbreak that has sickened eight people in Illinois. So far, no deaths have been connected to the strain of the bacteria, which has sent 10 people to the hospital and sickened 93 ...

Bacteria are the most populous organisms on the planet. They thrive in almost every known environment, adapting to different habitats by means of genetic variations that provide the capabilities essential for survival. These genetic innovations arise from what scientists believe is a random mutation and exchange of genes and other ...

The Obama administration has announced a new policy to handle the risks posed by legitimate biological research that could, in the wrong hands, threaten the public. The move comes in response to a huge debate over recent experiments on bird flu virus that got funding from the National Institutes of Health. ...

Scientists may have found one of the keys to weight loss hiding in the poop of 3,000-year-old mummies. The bacterial DNA found in their guts is very different from our modern intestinal flora. The reason: chlorinated water and antibiotics. That's the first hypothesis of Dr. Cecil Lewis. According to Lewis—who is leading ...

Two controversial studies on bird flu will once again be reviewed by an expert committee that advises the government on what to do with biological research that could pose potential dangers. The move is just the latest development in a fierce ongoing debate about genetically altered flu viruses created in laboratories ...

Cases of childhood narcolepsy spiked in Finland in 2010, and researchers there are suggesting the adjuvanted vaccine against the H1N1 pandemic flu might have been a trigger. Two related studies, appearing online in PLoS ONE, found that the incidence of narcolepsy rose markedly in children and adolescents, while remaining unchanged in ...

Bacteria could be exploited to recapture dwindling phosphate reserves from wastewater according to research presented at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring Conference in Dublin this week. Phosphorus – in the form of phosphate - is essential for all living things as a component of DNA and RNA and its role ...

The federal government is set to declare a bacteria killer found in many toothpastes, mouthwashes and anti-bacterial soaps as toxic to the environment, a move which could see the use of the chemical curtailed sharply. Health Canada has been probing the effects of triclosan on the body's endocrine sys-tem and whether ...

I regularly write about the microbiome – the trillions of bacteria that share our bodies with us, and the genes that they carry. At the recent International Human Microbiome Congress in Paris, I was immediately struck by two things. First, the field is clearly growing. It’s full of scientists who ...

AngryOrange Studios today is pleased to announce Glow Worm 1.0 for iOS, their new Sim/Arcade Game that challenges the player to capture and skillfully transport 10 or more bacteria scattered inside a living cell. “Glow Worm is an epic, wildly stylized, microscopic adventure,” stated Roman Turlej of AngryOrange Studios. “There are ...

A zebra spider spins no webs, but instead catches its prey by leaping onto it. But in space, a zebra spider would zip off in a straight line instead of a trajectory curved by gravity, missing its target. Amr Mohamed, an 18-year-old student from Alexandria, Egypt, wondered if the spider could ...

The ripeness of fruit could determine how food-poisoning bacteria grow on them, according to scientists presenting their work at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring Conference in Dublin this week. Their work could lead to new strategies to improve food safety, bringing many health and economic benefits. A wide range of ...

Whooping cough has made a comeback lately, with big outbreaks in California and elsewhere. One factor is spotty vaccination. Now researchers in Australia think they've filled in another piece of the puzzle there. They say the vaccine is better at targeting some strains of the bacterium responsible for whooping cough, Bordetella pertussis, and ...

As a pediatrician, I spend a lot of time looking for bacteria that might be making my patients sick. Some well-known illnesses that are caused by bacteria include strep throat, ear infections, Lyme disease and conjunctivitis (pinkeye). Bacteria are also responsible for acne, cavities and body odor. Bacteria can hurt you ...

New research suggests that childhood exposure to germs may help strengthen the immune system and protect children from developing allergies and asthma in later life. The latest research on mice supports the “hygiene hypothesis,” which states that the lack of early exposure to bacteria increases vulnerability to auto-immune diseases, and contends ...

A federal judge in New York City has ordered the FDA to start proceedings to revoke approvals for the use of antibiotics in livestock, a practice blamed for the spread of antibiotic-resistant "superbug" bacteria. In a case brought by five environmental and consumer advocacy groups, Judge Theodore Katz of the Southern ...

A chemical that causes the glow in fireflies can be used to detect bacterial contamination such as salmonella and E. coli in food, British scientists say. A test developed at Cardiff University can quickly and simply scan for the presence of bacteria, something that usually has to be done in a ...

Mark Merchant, biochemistry professor at McNeese State University, spoke with Leesville High School students Tuesday to discuss his ongoing research project investigating naturally occurring antibacterial peptides in alligators to uncover a new class of antibiotics. Merchant said he was first interested in this research when he noticed alligators who sustained serious ...

In search of ways to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria, scientists are looking to synthetic anti-microbial skin secretions from frogs. Two species, Australian Green-Eyed and Growling Grass frogs, were selected because peptides secreted from their skin form a defense to a broad spectrum of bacteria including Staphylococcus. Commonly known as superbugs, antibiotic-resistant bacteria ...

A bacterial gene has somehow lept across the species barrier and landed in the genetic makeup of an insect. While it's a mystery how the gene got there, it's been a big help to the insect. The insect, called the coffee berry borer, is the bane of coffee plantations worldwide. It ...

As part of The Ungovernables' exhibition, The New Museum hosted The House of Natural Fiber (HONF), a new media art collective out of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Yogyakarta is the second largest city on Java, a densely-populated island that hosts an active volcano named Mt. Merapi which erupted in 2006, and again ...

Most sinus infections are caused by viruses rather than bacteria and shouldn’t be treated with antibiotics — a common practice that contributes to the development of drug-resistant “superbugs,” according to new guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The guidelines, which also include new recommendations for treating bacterial infections, ...

Who doesn't like silk? It feels great in every temperature and is birthed from the bodies of amazing little worms. It can also kill bacteria like anthrax, according to a new study. Scientists at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory concluded that bleach-soaked silk can wipe out E. coli and anthrax ...

A new study describes how bacteria use a previously unknown means to defeat an antibiotic. The researchers found that the bacteria have modified a common "housekeeping" enzyme in a way that enables the enzyme to recognize and disarm the antibiotic. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

Gastrointestinal infections are killing more and more people in the United States and have become a particular threat to the elderly, according to new data released last week. Deaths from the infections more than doubled from 1999 to 2007, from 7,000 a year to more than 17,000 a year, the Centers ...

This photomicrograph is showing Neisseria gonorrhoeae in a cervical smear using the Gram-stain technique. Thanks to the CDC's PHIL for the image.

Other than basic stuff like the Earth rotating around the sun and E=MC2, how much do you know about the universe? Most people would say: not very much. But if you’re a theoretical physicist, you probably know quite a bit more--but still not that much; most of the mysteries of ...

Okairos AG, a biotechnology business that Merck & Co. (MRK) sold to venture capital funds in 2007, is seeking to produce the first preventive vaccine for hepatitis C, challenging makers of treatments for the disease. Okairos has begun a mid-stage study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, of ...

In an impassioned talk about vaccines and public opinion during a major conference on disease prevention in Atlanta this week, science journalist Seth Mnookin offered a new perspective on why immunizations continue to be associated with autism, despite scientific evidence that roundly rejects such link. At the International Conference on Emerging ...

A few months ago, Kevin Cox was working at a dollar store. Today he’s a laboratory assistant at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Creve Coeur, Mo. – the first big step of many toward a noble career. “I see myself working at the Centers for Disease Control and ...

Babies delivered by caesarean are at a higher risk of becoming overweight or obese because they are not exposed to protective bacteria in the mother's vagina, international research has found. The research, conducted by the Finnish paediatrician Erika Isolauri and to be presented in Sydney tomorrow, shows that exposure to bacteria ...

A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center reveals that the presence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) bacteria is associated with elevated levels of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), an important biomarker for blood glucose levels and diabetes. The association was even stronger in obese individuals with a higher Body ...

Australian frogs could help scientists in the global fight against hospital superbugs. Certain species of Australian frogs secrete chemicals which are toxic to different bacteria, including the sometimes-fatal MRSA strain which is resistant to multiple types of antibiotics, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday. Scientists in Sydney and Melbourne are researching the ...

Paul E. Johnson envisions the day when most citizens can have their blood platelets checked quickly for bacteria at a low cost. And he has created the technology that he believes can make a difference in eventually saving lives. Johnson, a University of Wyoming professor of physics since 1981, is venturing ...

UAB researchers developed a new vehicle to release proteins with therapeutic effects. The vehicles are known as "bacteria inclusion bodies", stable insoluble nanoparticles which are found normally in recombinant bacteria. Even though these inclusion bodies traditionally have been an obstacle in the industrial production of soluble enzymes and biodrugs, they ...

A new study conducted on mice suggests that antibiotics taken in childhood could play a part in the development and severity of allergic asthma. The study published Friday in the journal EMBO reports that antibiotics may damage bacteria that live in the gut, disturbing the bacterial community and possibly causing a ...

Since I started electing to do blog coverage of scientific meetings, I’ve run into an unfortunate reality. On any meeting day, there are one or two presentations that either are strikingly newsworthy or fit into an ongoing topic that I’m already interested in, and that therefore I feel obliged to ...

The underside of a glacier doesn't sound like the coziest of dwellings, but at least two types of bacteria call it home, a new study finds. Chryseobacterium and Paenisporosarcina may be able to thrive at the base of glaciers in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, scientists determined through lab experiments ...

Researchers have recently used social media to track the spread of diseases such as influenza, and now they are attempting to use such technologies to tackle a different public health issue: the spread of misinformation. There is widespread acknowledgement that myths and bad information about public health won't be going away. ...

No signs of H5N1 avian influenza infections were found in more than 400 Bangladeshis who were probably exposed to the virus while working on poultry farms and in markets, according to a study reported in preliminary form today. The findings were presented at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases (ICEID) ...

The northeastern United States faces potentially “the worst year yet” for Lyme disease and other tickborne infections because of the periodic abundance of a little-noticed component of the disease’s complex ecology: acorns. Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, explained during a presentation ...

A confluence of factors including an inflexible regulatory enviroment that disourages research and discovery, a paltry research pipeline for drugs for the most serious illnesses, and a tendency for physicians to unnecessarily prescribe antibiotics for routine aches and pains is largely responsible for the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans, ...

I’m spending the first part of this week at the International Conference for Emerging Infectious Diseases , a biennial scary-disease nerdgasm that is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Society for Microbiology and other worthy organizations, and in this iteration has drawn about 1,600 participants ...

Two large studies in Africa illustrate the difficulty of getting a handle on the continent's raging tuberculosis (TB) epidemic, researchers said here. One study, which looked at a household-based campaign against TB and HIV, found that it prevented TB incidence and transmission, while apparently increasing HIV testing, reported Peter Godfrey-Faussett, MD, ...

Smartphones are showing promise in disease surveillance in the developing world. The Kenya Ministry of Health, along with researchers in Kenya for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that smartphone use was cheaper than traditional paper survey methods to gather disease information, after the initial set–up cost. Survey ...

A University of Kent-led team of scientists has gained new insight into a rare virus that is threatening to wipe out the Mauritius parakeet -- one of the world's most endangered species of parrot. The Mauritius parakeet was saved from the brink of extinction 30 years ago, thanks to the work ...

Scientists from the Schepens Eye Research Institute, a subsidiary of Mass. Eye and Ear and affiliate of Harvard Medical School, have found for the first time that a bacterial pathogen can literally mow down protective molecules, known as mucins, on mucus membranes to enter and infect a part of the ...

As a general rule in life there is always a bigger fish – for every predator there is a bigger one lurking that is ready to eat it. However it is also worth remembering that there is usually always a smaller fish as well; for every small irritating parasite there ...

Yorkshire Water said it was targeting seven locations across the city where there were build-ups of fat deposits. The firm is deploying organically grown bacillus bacteria, which is commonly found in the human gut, to eat the fat, oils and grease. The blockages are caused by waste cooking oils from homes being ...

It may sound odd that bacteria can actually reduce allergy symptoms. But, certain bacteria can reduce inflammation in the body, improve nutrient absorption, and reduce nasal and sinus symptoms linked to allergies. Of course, not just any bacteria will do. Research by scientists at the Osaka University School of Medicine ...

Infectious-disease doctors have proposed a speedier, easier approval process for drug companies developing antibiotics against untreatable illnesses. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) made the proposal today at a hearing of a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. The hearing focused on reauthorization of ...

Treatment with lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra) reduced the risk that HIV-infected children would become co-infected with malaria, researchers said here. Compared with treatment based on non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), therapy with the protease inhibitor-based combination resulted in a 41% decrease in the incidence of malaria, said Jane Achan, MD, lecturer in pediatrics ...

It’s become a sad fact that many people being treated in health-care facilities end up catching a bad -- and potentially deadly -- bug in the very place where they’re supposed to get better. A report on the increased incidence of clostridium difficile infections in hospitals and other health-care settings issued ...

Cell death, also known as apoptosis, is a significant part of normal animal development. However, the question arises whether bacteria, similar to higher organisms, have a built-in mechanism that determines when the cells die. Researchers at the Hadassah Medical School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel have for the ...

Kim Ritchie fell into coral research as an undergraduate, got a Ph.D. in genetics and was doing post-doctoral research in Panama when she lost her funding. With the ideal training for biotech, however, she slipped right into a startup. But when the company went bankrupt, she jumped back into research. ...

UB researchers are studying a hypervirulent strain of a common bacterium with the potential to become a superbug that is difficult, if not impossible, to treat. Most antibiotic-resistant bacteria do not infect healthy people. The strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae that UB researchers are investigating could prove an exception. ”In the last 10 ...

Rhizobium radiobacter. Ever heard of it? It's a bug that causes crown gall disease in plants. So what does that have to do with vaccines against HIV? Canadian researchers have found sugars on the surface of the bacterium that are remarkably similar to those on the surface of the virus, ...

You may have heard that the appendix is a relic of our past, like the hind leg bones of a whale. Bill Parker, a professor of surgery at the Duke University School of Medicine, heard that, too; he just disagrees. Parker thinks the appendix serves as a “nature reserve” for ...

Adding prebiotic ingredients to infant formula helps colonize the newborn's gut with a stable population of beneficial bacteria, and probiotics enhance immunity in formula-fed infants, two University of Illinois studies report. "The beneficial bacteria that live in a baby's intestine are all-important to an infant's health, growth, and ability to fight ...

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have discovered a key enzyme structure in bacteria, a finding that lays the foundation for a new generation of antibiotics that are safer and less prone to drug resistance. More than 70 years after the first sulfa drugs helped to revolutionize medical care and ...

Leafcutter ants, the tiny red dots known for carrying green leaves as they march through tropical forests, are also talented farmers that cultivate gardens of fungi and bacteria. Ants eat fungi from the so-called fungal gardens, but the bacteria's role has been unclear until now. New research shows the bacteria help ...

Researchers who created a so-called superstrain of H5N1 bird flu say the virus may not be as lethal or as virulent as has been widely suggested. This week, at a meeting of experts attending the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) in Washington, D.C., Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center who ...

Two controversial studies on bird flu will once again be reviewed by an expert committee that advises the government on what to do with biological research that could pose potential dangers. The move is just the latest development in a fierce ongoing debate about genetically altered flu viruses created in laboratories ...

The bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes atypical pneumonia, is helping scientists uncover how cells make the most of limited resources. By measuring all the proteins this bacterium produces, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and collaborators, have found that the secret is fine-tuning. Like a mechanic ...

The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has got many experts predicting a future in which currently tractable diseases, like tuberculosis, became untreatable again. The popularity of modern antibiotics, ironically, is what is leading to their downfall: antibiotics in consumer products, like soaps, as well as the excessive use of antibiotics by ...

NO ONE WOULD accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 63-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair that encircles his head like a ring of fire. Certainly Flegr’s thinking ...

The anti-vaccination movement continues to grow, despite the retraction and thorough discrediting of the 1998 scientific study that spurred much of its growth. The stubborn persistence of anti-vaxxers shows how difficult it is to dispel misinformation once that information is out there, even after dozens of new studies and ...

The same bacteria that eats flesh can make a super glue used to bind molecules. Dr. Mark Howarth, with his graduate student Bijan Zakeri in Oxford University's department of biochemistry, developed an adhesive that sticks molecules together, nearly inseparably. They used the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes, infamous for eating flesh when there is ...

Forget needles in haystacks. Try finding the tip of a needle in a virus. Scientists have long known that a group of viruses called bacteriophages have a knack for infiltrating bacteria and that some begin their attack with a protein spike. But the tip of this spike is so small ...

Cheaters never prosper - at least not in the lab. A new finding contradicts the notion that cooperative organisms are vulnerable to freeloaders. Some bacteria send out signals that help a lab culture as a whole adapt to its environment, so other bugs ought to be able to benefit without wasting ...

It has been a mild flu season so far, but influenza activity has gradually started to increase in recent weeks, the CDC is reporting. The influenza season is usually regarded as having started when 10% of respiratory samples taken in cases of influenza-like illness test positive for the virus, the agency ...

A type of bacteria found in the mouth has the potential to cause serious illness - even death - if it enters the bloodstream through bleeding gums or mouth ulcers. The Daily Mail reports that scientists have recently identified the bacteria, called Streptococcus tigurinus, and are now trying to establish ...

Bacteria usually found orbiting high above the Earth have been found in a British river - and could be a new power source for the world. The mysterious organisms, found in the the mouth of the River Wear, in Sunderland, can generate electricity using a special battery called a microbial fuel ...

Researchers have nailed down something scientists, government officials and agribusiness proponents have argued about for years – whether antibiotics in livestock feed give rise to antibiotic-resistant germs that can threaten humans. A study in the journal mBio, published by the American Society for Microbiology, shows how an antibiotic-susceptible Staph germ passed ...

The world's first "test-tube" meat, a hamburger made from a cow's stem cells, will be produced this fall, Dutch scientist Mark Post told a major science conference on Sunday. Post's aim is to invent an efficient way to produce skeletal muscle tissue in a laboratory that exactly mimics meat, and eventually ...

TB kills almost 2 million people a year worldwide, and is increasingly becoming resistant to the antibiotics used to treat it, but there are few new drugs in the pipeline. Doxycycline was introduced in 1967 and is used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections, but until now has ...

Shiga toxin is a protein produced by certain strains of Shigella and E. coli bacteria. Infections by bacterial strains that carry Shiga toxin can lead to dangerous complications, including severe bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, and even death. New research suggests that manganese, a metal and an essential nutrient, may prevent ...

Aggressive infections in hospitals are an increasing health problem worldwide. Now, a young Danish scientist has found a natural substance in a Chilean rainforest plant that effectively supports the effect of traditional treatment with antibiotics. Jes Gitz Holler, from the University of Copenhagen, discovered in a research project a compound ...

Microbiologists are starting to make sense of tens of thousands of samples they've collected from around the world, undoubtedly containing legions upon legions of different kinds of microorganisms. How many kinds? That's just the point: Nobody knows. The microbial world is "Earth's dark matter," says Janet Jansson, a senior staff scientist ...

Lessons learned from Florence Nightingale could prevent the spread of harmful bugs by allowing "friendly" bacteria into hospitals, an expert has claimed. Sterile conditions in wards and operating theatres may be doing more harm than good by wiping out organisms that keep dangerous microbes at bay, Dr Jack Gilbert believes. Florence ...

The same substance that hampers the infection capability of bacteria can hasten the fiber formation of the protein that is involved in the development of Parkinson’s disease. The study shows how important basic research is to our understanding of possible side effects from drug candidates interacting with various target proteins. The study ...

Increased bacterial loads in potable water could have significant health effects on indigenous people from the Arctic to Uganda, says Vanier scholar Indigenous people around the world are among the most vulnerable to climate change and are increasingly susceptible to the pathogen loads found in potable water after heavy rainfall or ...

University at Buffalo researchers are expressing concern about a new, under-recognized, much more potent variant of a common bacterium that has surfaced in the U.S. "Historically, in Western countries, classical strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae have caused infections mostly in sick, hospitalized patients whose host defense systems are compromised," says Thomas Russo, ...

A new drug compound can recharge a class of antibiotics used to fight superbug bacteria, improving the antibiotics’ effectiveness 16-fold. It’s another volley on the part of humans in the ongoing battle between new drugs and bacterial resistance. This new compound doesn’t fight the bacteria itself — it just makes the ...

As President’s Day weekend approaches and people flee from the north towards sunnier climates, biofuels researchers are exploring the potential of heat-loving bacteria and fungi found in and around volcano country. It’s two days before February’s long weekend here in the US, and already the airport at the Digest’s home in ...

Despite the daily disturbance of brushing and flossing, the mouth of a healthy person contains a stable ecosystem of healthy bacteria. New research shows that the mouth of a smoker is a much more chaotic, diverse ecosystem—and is much more susceptible to invasion by harmful bacteria. As a group, smokers suffer ...

Scottish scientists have found a more efficient way to make biofuels, using electricity rather than sunlight. Their “electric leaf” is based on photosynthetic bacteria whose biochemistry has been changed through radical genetic engineering to make a liquid hydrocarbon very similar to petrol. The energy input will be electricity generated from renewable ...

University at Buffalo researchers are expressing concern about a new, under-recognized, much more potent variant of a common bacterium that has surfaced in the U.S. "Historically, in Western countries, classical strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae have caused infections mostly in sick, hospitalized patients whose host defense systems are compromised," says Thomas Russo, ...

Fruit flies can apparently out-drink Frank the Tank and not get sick from alcohol poisoning. Now researchers have found this fraternity-party ability may save flies from a gory death. The results showed that drunk fruit-fly larvae turned the tables by killing wasp parasites in their bloodstream, essentially causing the parasite's organs ...

A gene that influences the inflammatory response to infection may also predict the effectiveness of drug treatment for a deadly form of tuberculosis. An international collaboration between researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, Duke University, Harvard University, the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam and Kings College London ...

When 22 bird flu experts meet at the World Health Organization this week, they will be tasked with deciding just how far scientists should go in creating lethal mutant viruses in the name of research. The hurriedly assembled meeting is designed to try to settle an unprecedented row over a call ...

We all know that eukaryotes are bigger than prokaryotes. On average. Mostly. Of course our pathetic attempts at generalisation are too often devastated in a counterattack by nature’s awesomest power: variation. There’s variation within species, making it a necessity to ultimately tie biology back to populations from time to time ...

Jack was sinking fast, his vital signs registering alarming numbers. With every passing second, his doctor, Charles Prober, could see his patient being overwhelmed by sepsis, a deadly complication of infection that plagues hospitals worldwide. “Jack is the hardest patient,” counseled Prober’s colleague, Lisa Shieh, MD, PhD, the medical director of ...

Biologists working in Antarctica's dry valleys have been moving mummified seal corpses around, in an effort to try and better our understanding of the microbes that live there. The extreme aridity of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, where katabatic winds mean that almost all moisture evaporates immediately, allows for the natural mummification ...

A class of antacids known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) may increase the risk of severe diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile bacteria, the FDA has announced. The advisory comes after the agency’s review of 28 observational studies, which found that the rate of C. difficile infection was from 1.4 to ...

The bacteria that causes Tuberculosis is a nasty little beast. The white blood cells that clear infection in your body work by ingesting bacteria and then breaking them up, and the TB escapes this by letting itself get ingested and then sitting inside your white blood cells. They don’t sit ...

Infectious disease has joined poaching and habitat loss as a major threat to the survival of African great apes as they have become restricted to ever-smaller populations. Despite the work of dedicated conservationists, efforts to save our closest living relatives from ecological extinction are largely failing, and new scientific approaches ...

A new online study on the emergence of the superbug, which British researchers had traced to India in 2010, has said the antibiotic resistant gene was constructed very recently, challenging Indian health authorities' contention that it has existed in the environment forever. Authored by four British researchers including Timothy Walsh of ...

Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London have discovered the workings behind some of the bacteria that kill hundreds of thousands every year, possibly paving the way for new antibiotics that could treat infections more effectively. With antibiotic resistance on the rise in strains of pathogenic bacteria, innovative strategies are needed ...

At Microsoft, even the security team gets in on the science fair. Today, Microsoft held one of its periodic The Garage science fairs and we got to attend. The Garage is Microsoft's program where employees work together on side projects during off hours. The results of those collaborations sometimes make it ...

Circular, entire, smooth, yellow colonies of Micrococcus lutea. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A soybean-shaped bacterium called Caulobacter crescentus, found in freshwater and seawater, makes one of the strongest adhesives in the world. Now high-resolution video microscopy is shedding light on how it can carefully use this adhesive, like a super-precise application of superglue, to stick on surfaces in wet environments. C. crescentus is ...

Immunological diseases, such as eczema and asthma, are on the increase in westernised society and represent a major challenge for 21st century medicine. A new study has shown, for the first time, that growing up on a farm directly affects the regulation of the immune system and causes a reduction ...

Irregular, umbonate, opaque Bacillus subtilis colonies on the surface of a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Watermelons could be the cause of five Scottish cases of salmonella which have been linked to a UK-wide outbreak, health officials have said. Since the beginning of December, there have been 30 cases of the Salmonella Newport infection across the UK. Four of the five infections in Scotland were in children under ...

A Missouri State Medical Association, led by two Saint Louis University pediatricians, aims to raise awareness about the importance of getting children vaccinated and change the way in which doctors respond to parents' fears of vaccines. The campaign is the focus point of Ken Haller, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, ...

Potentially deadly strains of MRSA that are easily passed between people outside of hospitals are increasing in the UK, experts said today. Extra vigilance was required around MRSA strains, including USA300, which has spread across the US and is now seen in the UK, says Dr Ruth Massey of the Department ...

Studying self-replicating genetic units, called plasmids, found in one of the world's widest-ranging pathogenic soil bacteria -- the crown-gall-disease-causing microorganism Agrobacterium tumefaciens -- Indiana University biologists are showing how freeloading, mutant derivatives of these plasmids benefit while the virulent, disease-causing plasmids do the heavy-lifting of initiating infection in plant hosts. ...

It was only last week that we spoke to industrial giant Corning about their reinforced Gorilla Glass 2 for smartphone displays. Now, the company says it’s working on ultra-slim, flexible and bacteria-killing versions of the material, too. The New York-based company announced this morning during its annual investors day that it ...

The controversy over research about potentially dangerous H5N1 viruses heated up last night in a New York City debate that featured some of the leading voices exchanging blunt comments on the alleged risks and benefits of publishing or withholding the full details of the studies. The debate, sponsored by the New ...

Norovirus, a pathogen that often causes food poisoning and gastroenteritis, was responsible for 18.2 percent of all infection outbreaks and 65 percent of ward closures in U.S. hospitals during a two-year period, according to a new study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC), ...

Bacteria can multiply rapidly, potentially doubling every 20 minutes in ideal conditions but this exponential growth phase is preceded by a period known as lag phase, where no increase in cell number is seen. Lag phase was first described in the 19th Century, and was assumed to be needed by ...

We've seen the plasma beam toothbrush, where a blast of room-temperature plasma destroys plaque and bacteria in your mouth. Now researchers at Drexel University have applied the technology to raw chicken and found that the gentle blue blast of ionized matter effectively removes pathogens on the poultry's surface. When raw chicken ...

Over 50 percent of bacterial infections in Indian hospitals are resistant to commonly used antibiotics, and surveys show that many widespread bacterial pathogens in India are also resistant to powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics. In 2010, a team of South Asian and British scientists analyzed bacterial infections in a hospital around New Delhi, ...

Circular, smooth, entire, opaque colonies of Proteus vulgaris on a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Standing as the most densely populated city in the world, New Delhi has plenty of public health issues to deal with on a constant basis. But now health officials have some very urgent matters to deal with: new strains of super-bacteria, the most destructive of which contain the gene dubbed ...

Some bacteria can evade efforts to vaccinate against them by wearing a new disguise, researchers say. A study, published in Nature Genetics, tracked how pneumococcus bacteria responded to the introduction of a vaccine in the US in 2000. Doctors said the evasion would make some vaccines less successful in the long term. An ...

Research into the bird flu virus has set off an impassioned scientific debate over its risks and benefits in the New York Times' commentariat. Here is a sampling. To the Editor: Re “Bird Flu Scientists Agree to Delay Virus Research” (news article, Jan. 21): There is great debate in the scientific and public ...

What if diagnosing salmonella or colorectal cancer was as easy as looking in the toilet? Scientists and designers are collaborating to create a new type of bacteria that beautifies your fecal matter while diagnosing your illness. We mentioned E. chromi, the color-coded designer bacteria made from E. coli, back in June. ...

San Francisco based artist and writer Jonathon Keats is serious about making culture available to all–including insects, plants, and now, bacteria. Mr. Keats has choreographed ballet for honeybees at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by selectively planting flowers around San Francisco hives. He also created pornography for house plants ...

Persistent bacterial infections can make a mess of our bowels and the usual treatment method of adding antibiotics usually causes even more disruptions. Researchers, however, are fine tuning a treatment that involves adding a sample of the stool of another which jump-starts the infected patients immune system, reports Kerry Grens ...

The arms race between a virus and the bacteria it attacks has helped scientists better understand one of the mysteries of evolution: How new traits evolve. In a series of experiments, the bacteria-infecting viruses repeatedly acquired the ability to attack their host bacteria through a different "doorway," or receptor on the ...

Circular, smooth, entire, opaque colonies of Alcaligenes on a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Two weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would ban certain off-label uses of cephalosporin antibiotics in animal agriculture, asserting that these uses posed an undue risk of selecting for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Many of us who follow this issue closely recognized FDA's move for what it ...

A World Health Organization (WHO) official said the agency will play a role in leading discussions on issues related to controversial H5N1 avian influenza transmission studies, as more experts called for a further global discussion of the issues. Dr Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of health security and environment at the WHO, ...

The H5N1 virus has killed roughly 60 percent of humans infected, a mortality rate which is orders of magnitude higher than that of seasonal influenza virus. Many victims of the former fall heir to acute respiratory distress syndrome—the inability to breathe. Now researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and ...

Even the tiniest microscopic organisms make waves when they swim. In fact, dealing with these waves is a fact of life for the ulcer-causing bacteria H. pylori. The bacteria are known to change their behavior in order to compensate for the waves created by other bacteria swimming around in the ...

A Rutgers–Camden professor is using his expertise in computer science to aid in the development of new methods to fight tuberculosis. Desmond Lun, an associate professor of computer science, has received $36,589 from a Lockheed Martin contract administered by the National Institutes of Health for his work with GRANITE (Genetic Regulatory ...

A University of Nevada, Las Vegas microbiologist says he and his team members have identified and cultivated a type of magnetic bacteria in Death Valley that could one day contribute to the biotech industry. Researcher Dennis Bazylinski says that the bacteria navigate along magnetic field lines because of the mineral produced ...

A team of researchers from the departments of Microbiology and Pharmaceutical Technology of the Universidad of Navarra worked on the development of a new oral vaccine in order to treat bacterial dysentery, or shigellosis. This pathology causes 1.1 million deaths per year around the world; 61% of deaths occur ...

Between August 2010 and June 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counted 109 people in 38 states infected with a commercial strain of Salmonella Typhimurium most commonly found in microbiology laboratories. On Tuesday, the CDC released its final report on the outbreak, which Food Safety News ...

A promising new system can convert brown seaweed into biofuel, opening up a new possible source of energy that could help replace fossil fuels, like gasoline, scientists reported today (Jan. 19). The secret: bacteria genetically engineered to break down a previously inaccessible sugar in seaweed, called alginate. The researchers ...

A simple mineral supplement — manganese — holds promise as the first successful treatment for hemorrhage-inducing infections caused by some food- and waterborne germs. The mineral helps detoxify Shiga toxin, which is produced by a host of bacteria, including the type of E. coli that killed scores and sickened more ...

Drug resistance in tuberculosis appears to have reached a peak in several patients in India, who are virtually untreatable with available medications. In a letter to Clinical Infectious Diseases, published online, Mumbai physicians described four patients whose TB was resistant to five front-line drugs and seven second-line medications. They are "totally drug-resistant," ...

Pigmented and non-pigmented parts of Serratia marcescens colonies. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A new review of the influenza drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) has raised questions about both the efficacy of the medication and the commitment of its maker to supply enough data for claims about the drug to be evaluated by independent experts. It also raises questions about the entire process of systematic review. Researchers ...

After giving pigs a low-dose of antibiotics for just two weeks, researchers detected a drastic rise in the number of E. coli bacteria in the guts of the animals. And those bacteria showed a large jump in resistance to antibiotics. The particular strain of E. coli detected in the study was ...

Research by University of Tennessee, Knoxville, faculty has discovered that bacteria's move from sea to land may have occurred much later than thought. It also has revealed that the bacteria may be especially useful in bioenergy research. Igor Jouline, UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory joint faculty professor of microbiology and researcher at ...

For the first time, the vast array of bacteria in the human gut has been studied as a complex, integrated biological system, rather than a set of separate species. The new approach, which reveals patterns that correspond with body weight, treats the human microbiome as a cohesive “supra-organism,” in which genes ...

The neurologic form of the equine herpesevirus-1 (EHV) called equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy (EHM), a potentially fatal disease of horses, can largely be avoided by instituting and maintaining standard biosecurity measures, which are readily available from the American Association of Equine Practitioners. A real-life example is a 6-year-old North Carolina mare that ...

From tracking activities within bacteria to creating images of molecules that make up human hair, several experiments have already demonstrated the unique abilities of the revolutionary imaging technique called multi-isotope imaging mass spectometry, or MIMS, developed by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). MIMS can produce high-resolution, quantitative three-dimensional ...

A man can live many lives. Paul Ehrlich has. Once, he was a butterfly biologist. Another time, he wrote the book called The Population Bomb, a book that triggered global conversations about the fate of humanity. Still another, he described the relationship between plants and the animals that eat them. ...

The detection of a new virus called XMRV in the blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in 2009 raised hope that a long-sought cause of the disease, whose central characteristic is extreme tiredness that lasts for at least six months, had been finally found. But that hypothesis has ...

One of my heroes, evolutionary microbiologist Lynn Margulis, died this past Thanksgiving. She was an amazing lady who was married to Carl Sagan for many years, and partnered with James Lovelock in discovering that the earth is an interconnected living global ecosystem run largely by microbes. She pioneered the theory ...

New research published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that the types and levels of bacteria in the intestines may be used to predict a person’s likelihood of having a heart attack, and that manipulating these organisms may help reduce heart attack risk. This discovery may lead to new ...

In a new study of patients with bacteria in their urine, doctors prescribed antibiotics to one in three who had no symptoms and no evidence of a urinary tract infection. In those cases, the bacteria probably would have disappeared on their own without causing any problems, researchers said, and treating those ...

India has gone a full year without recording a new case of polio, a significant benchmark for the South Asian nation and an encouraging development for health professionals fighting to eradicate the stubborn disease worldwide. But experts warned that premature declarations of victory could lead to complacency among Indian parents, who ...

Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time. The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading ...

Circular, opaque colonies on the surface of a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

This is a brief scientific simulation displaying our current understanding of how bacteria acquire resistance. It's from the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine website. Thanks to Youtube user DrKPW for posting this!

Irregular, concentric, undulate, opaque colonies on the surface of a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Radio Mycelium proposes the construction of a series of experimental situations examining a new networked imaginary, the single organism of the fungal mycelium, in relation to pathogenic, electromagnetic communications. Participants will learn how to construct simple measurement devices, and culture shiitake, blue oyster and Enokitake mushrooms, amongst other simple moulds. “A ...

Responding to experiments in the Netherlands and the United States in which scientists created a highly transmissible form of the potentially deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity urged scientific journals not to publish details of the work out of fear that the information could ...

Virulent drug-resistant "superbugs" are back in the news. We have a lot to learn from these small but smart creatures. To the dismay of many in the pubic health field, the FDA just dropped plans to enforce a 1977(!) decision to limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed, which ...

Columbus taxpayers will spend billions of dollars to stop millions of gallons of sewage from spilling into the Scioto River and other waterways during heavy rains. As the city builds new treatment tanks and interceptor pipes, it could save a lot of money by investing in sand, according to an Ohio ...

You vacuum your house religiously to get rid of all the dust, dirt, and bacteria and make sure your indoor air is up to snuff. But new research suggests that some vacuum cleaners may actually be making things worse, not better. Certain vacuum cleaners spit fine dust and bacteria back into the ...

Having more types of bacteria on your skin might not sound very desirable, but it could save you from a mosquito bite, according to a study published in PLoS ONE on Dec. 28. Human skin is host to a wide range of microorganisms, many of which metabolize components in sweat to ...

A new bio-nanotechnology developed by Taiwanese researchers may soon help detect bacteria in blood samples quickly, without the need for long culture processes. The new technology can help get much faster and more precise initial test results of infections and reduce the chance of fatalities or complications, Taiwan's Central News ...

Bacteria and other microbes love living in slimy communities that cling to riverbed rocks and swimming pool walls, contaminate factory equipment and medical implants, and sometimes coat the teeth as plaque. When such microbe gatherings stick to a hard surface, they’re called biofilms. They're also notoriously difficult to clean up, ...

The appearance of circular, entire, opaque colonies on the surface of a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The controversial Andrew Wakefield, MBBS, whose now largely discredited research ignited the vaccine-autism furor, has filed a defamation suit in a Texas court against BMJ, its editor, and an investigative journalist over a series of articles published last January. The articles, by Brian Deer, as well as commentaries by the journal's ...

Recent reports that two teams of scientists had genetically altered a deadly flu virus to make it more contagious have provoked fear, even outrage, in some quarters. Biosecurity advisers to the American government, which paid for the research, have urged that full details not be published for fear that terrorists could ...

Tempting fate is never wise; tempting a flu pandemic is downright foolish. Yet it is impossible for scientists to understand influenza or create vaccines without at least some risk. The question, then, is what level of risk is acceptable. On December 20th the American authorities said they had asked the world’s ...

Should a study by a team of students from Missouri University of Science and Technology become reality, individuals suffering with diabetes will be able to monitor their blood sugar levels in a more cost-effective way. Recently, the team of students at the Missouri S&T chapter of iGEM - the International ...

A contaminant (mold mycelium) on a Serratia streak plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

U.S. health regulators approved the expansion of Pfizer Inc's blockbuster Prevnar vaccine for use in adults 50 and older to fight pneumonia, meningitis, and other diseases cause by pneumococcus bacteria. Prevnar 13 is designed to fight 13 forms of a bacterium called Streptococcus pneumoniae, or pneumococcus. Pneumonia caused by the pneumococcal ...

The University of California at San Diego last month detailed the latest advances toward making a lighting system powered by genetically engineered e. coli bacteria. Bioengineers insert a protein that causes the bacteria to fluoresce. Assembled in colonies, these bacteria act as a light source, like the pixel on a screen. ...

Four cases of infants sickened by a rare bacteria sometimes linked to powdered formula, including two who died, are not related and parents can continue using the products to feed their babies, two federal agencies announced Friday. Scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug ...

Water is set to use a new biological weapon to flush away Whitby residents’ festive fat. Over the Christmas period trillions of fat-busting bugs have been deployed in the sewers of Whitby to feast on fat, oils and grease. Over time these substances build up on the inside of sewer pipes, reducing ...

The strain of bird flu that killed a Chinese bus driver won't spread to other people, a health agency said Monday. The Shenzhen Disease Control Center appealed for calm while officials investigated how the man contracted the H5N1 strain of the virus. The 39-year-old driver, Chen, had developed a fever Dec. ...

It's perhaps the most fiercely contested ecosystem in Canadian history. And now British Columbia's Clayoquot Sound has proven to have such a rich mix of biological material at the interface of land and sea that it's helped an international team of scientists gain a new understanding of the planet's carbon ...

People with diabetes may one day have a less expensive resource for monitoring their blood glucose levels, if research by a group of Missouri University of Science and Technology students becomes reality. Members of the Missouri S&T chapter of iGEM - the International Genetically Engineered Machine Foundation - recently devised a ...

Here's something to keep in mind the next time you reach for a paper towel in a public washroom. A study by Laval University in Quebec City finds bacteria thrives on the paper products, even unused towels. And, it says some of those germs could be transferred to you after you've washed ...

Science and news cycles sometimes converge in unhandy ways. That was the case on on January 1, when word came out of Shenzen, a Chinese city bordering Hong Kong, that a 39-year-old bus driver, surnamed Chen, had died of the H5N1 (or bird flu) virus. The deeply personal tragedy for ...

A man who had been diagnosed with China's first case of bird flu in more than a year has died in the southern city of Shenzhen, health officials say. The 39-year-old bus driver was admitted to hospital with pneumonia but tested positive for the bird flu virus. The H5N1 bird flu ...

Vietnam says an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease has infected more than 110,000 people this year and killed 166, most of them children under 5 years old. A Health Ministry official said Friday that the infection rate was slowing from a September peak of 3,000 per week to about ...

A close-up of the surface of a streak plate using a mixed culture of Serratia marcescens and Micrococcus lutea as the inoculum. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

bc5 - A close-up view of a pour plate using Serratia marcescens as the inoculum. A variety of colonial shapes can be seen. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The number of reported cases of a novel swine influenza virus has risen to 12 since July, encompassing 5 states, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The virus includes a gene from the human pandemic strain and affects mostly children. The agency is taking the influenza ...

The results of a pour plate using Serratia marcescens as the inoculum. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

In most situations in the wild, animals develop abilities to help them avoid being eaten. The chameleon, for example, can change its color to avoid being seen by predators. What’s less usual, are animals or organisms that develop abilities that do the opposite, i.e. develop traits that encourage predators to ...

Earlier this month, the Maine-based grocery chain Hannaford issued a ground beef recall after at least 14 people were infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella. Chances are this is the first you’ve heard of it. After all, it’s not much compared to the 76 illnesses and one death back ...

The young scientist, normally calm and measured, seemed edgy when he stopped by his boss’s office. “You are not going to believe this one,” he told Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. “I think we have an airborne H5N1 virus.” The news, delivered one afternoon last July, ...

The results of a pour plate after incubation. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for all unvaccinated adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes aged 19 to 59, say new guidelines from the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The vaccination should be done as soon as possible after adults in this age group are diagnosed with diabetes. Unvaccinated ...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today confirmed two more novel flu infections, one an H3N2 variant that has been identified in 11 other patients this year and one an H1N1 variant that has never been reported in humans before. The CDC described the latest novel H3N2 case ...

It isn't often these days that a whole new country comes into being. But that just happened, with the official hiving off of South Sudan from the rest of Sudan on 9 July. Sudan always was an improbably huge result of post-colonial border invention, and the near-permanent civil war between the ...

People who harbor ulcer-causing bacteria in their stomachs may be protected against some diarrheal diseases, suggests a new study. The bacterium, called Helicobacter pylori, is especially common throughout the developing world, but only causes symptoms in a minority of those it infects. People with chronic H. pylori infections are known to have ...

It's a given that shopping does damage to your wallet, but experts are now saying that it could also be harmful to your health. Close quarters inside the stores, combined with dry heat, poor hygiene by other shoppers and less-than-ideal cleanliness inside many malls can equal a cold or more severe ...

The presence of a pellicle on the surface of a broth medium. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Top US scientists on Wednesday defended their bid to stop details of a mutant bird flu virus from being published and called for global cooperation to ward off an uncontrollable pandemic. Meanwhile, scientists involved in the experiments said they are cooperating with government officials and the editors of the journals Science ...

For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses and touch off epidemics. In the experiments, conducted in the United States and the Netherlands, scientists ...

The results after incubation of a blood agar plate exposed to a laboratory environment for approximately 2 hrs. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A generally accepted, 44-year-old assumption about how certain kinds of bacteria make energy and synthesize cell materials has been shown to be incorrect by a team of scientists led by Donald Bryant, the Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology at Penn State and a research professor in the Department of ...

Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Jefferson immunologists found that a specialized "human immune system" mouse model closely mimics a person's specific response and resolution of a tick-borne infection known as relapsing fever, caused by the bacteria Borrelia hermsii. The response is so ...

A common oral bacteria, Fusobacterium nucleatum, acts like a key to open a door in human blood vessels and leads the way for it and other bacteria like Escherichia coli to invade the body through the blood and make people sick, according to dental researchers at Case Western Reserve University. Yiping ...

In an example of life imitating art, biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign composed of millions of bacterial cells that periodically fluoresce in unison like blinking light bulbs. Their achievement, detailed in this week’s advance online issue of the journal Nature, involved attaching a ...

From NPR's Science Friday: 'In 1887, Julius Petri invented a simple pair of nesting glass dishes, ideal for keeping specimens of growing bacteria sterile—the 'Petri dish.' Science historian Howard Markel recounts the history of this ubiquitous lab supply, and the serendipitous discovery of the stuff in it, agar.'

The discovery of microbes in any icy lava tube in Oregon raises hope that similar microorganisms could survive in the very similar conditions to be found on Mars. The microbes are coping with near-freezing temperatures and low levels of oxygen, and can even grow in the absence of organic food. Their ...

'Second part of my thinly veiled excuse to research X-men and call it work. The first post can be found here. This is only meant to be a two-parter but I’ll see how I feel on Monday, and whether I can find any more X-men that are as amazing as ...

Great article from Scientific American... click 'source' to see the whole piece... 1) The Blob Like many of the X-men, the Blob has gone through several incarnations of character but the one main continuous feature is that he’s big. That’s pretty much it. The size gives him supernatural strength, the ability ...

Scientists have discovered a new signal that helps invading bacteria communicate but also helps targeted rice plants coordinate defensive attacks on the disease-causing invaders, a finding that could lead to new methods of combating infection not just in plants, but in humans. Findings from the study, conducted by a team of ...

As the influenza season splutters into life across the northern hemisphere, millions will head to their computers in search of information, advice and remedies. Since 2008 Google has used these inquiries to track influenza-like illnesses (ILIs)—as symptoms not backed up by a definitive viral test are officially known—among its users ...

Transplanting faecal matter from one person to another - the thought might turn your stomach, but it could be lifesaving. Some doctors are using the procedure to repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria, which can become unbalanced in some diseases. Dr Alisdair MacConnachie, who thinks he is the only UK doctor to ...

Patients with hemophilia B experienced considerable improvements and fewer injections with clotting factor to reduce bleeding after receiving just one treatment with gene therapy, researchers from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, USA, and University College London (UCL), England, reported in NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine). The small Phase I ...

No matter if you are into big, fat hamburgers or eat entirely vegetarian, nibbling on spinach leaves and celery stalks, some food borne pathogens will sooner or later get you. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in the United States alone, food borne pathogens cause approximately ...

A Queen's University infectious disease expert has collaborated in the development of a disinfection system that may change the way hospital rooms all over the world are cleaned as well as stop bed bug outbreaks in hotels and apartments. "This is the future, because many hospital deaths are preventable with better ...

Researchers say the Gulf of Mexico is filled with a hidden treasure — treasure that could help cure deadly diseases. University of Florida scientists are tracking bacteria they say could become medicine's newest secret weapon. In the warm waters off Craig Key, Hendrik Luesch, a UF College of Pharmacy associate professor, is ...

Researchers are working on a vaccine that might one day prevent norovirus, which has made many cruise ship passengers in the United States ill. "It is possible to prevent infection and illness with a vaccine for norovirus," said Dr. Robert Atmar, a professor of medicine and molecular virology at the Baylor ...

Dr. Udi Qimron of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine has developed an efficient and cost-effective liquid solution that can help fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria and keep more patients safe from life-threatening infections. The solution is based on specially designed bacteriophages — ...

New methods speed up the process of identifying the subgroup of E. coli bacteria responsible for an outbreak of illness. At the same time, Norwegian researchers are on the trail of a disinfectant that will inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria in food. Escherichia coli bacteria (E. coli) are common to ...

Scientists in Germany have synthesised the core part of a sugar compound produced by the pathogenic bacteria responsible for meningitis - Neisseria meningitides - which could be used in a vaccine for meningococcal diseases, in particular meningitis B. Pathogenic bacteria produce a polysaccharide layer, forming a capsule to cloak antigenic ...

The gut-associated microbiome of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants has microbial diversity and includes fungal species, bacteria, molds, viruses, parasitic organisms, and roundworms, according to a study published online Dec. 8 in PLoS One. Mariam S. LaTuga, M.D., from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and colleagues investigated ...

Crystal Lopez isn’t squeamish. The animal sciences senior has worked at the UA Animal Sciences Meat Science Laboratory for more than three years. The job requires her to come in close contact with the carcasses of freshly harvested animals. The lab has facilities to slaughter and store cattle as well as other ...

Microscopic 570-million-year-old fossils from China may represent the earliest evidence for animal life on Earth, suggests a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Previous theories have said that the fossils represented giant bacteria. "One of the proponents of the bacteria theory was a co-author of this paper (Jake ...

A new bacterial insecticide that is deadly against a wide range of insects could be approved within three to four years, say researchers. Structural biologist Dr Michael Landsberg, of the University of Queensland, and colleagues, report their findings on the bacteria Yersinia entomophaga MH96 this week in Proceedings of the National ...

One of the toughest microorganisms on the planet has just been named after University of Otago microbiologist Prof Greg Cook. "It's a great honour and it means a lot to me," he said yesterday. The bacterial species concerned - Amphibacillus cookii sp. nov.- flourishes in the hot and highly salty environment of ...

Cellular proteins called septins might play an important part in the human body’s ability to fight off bacterial infections, according to a study. Septins are found in many organisms, and are best known for building scaffolding to provide structural support during cell division and to rope off parts of the cell. ...

“To go to Berkeley Pit Lake, you have to complete a forty-hour Hazmat program—and that’s just to stand next to the water,” advises Andrea Stierle, a research professor at the University of Montana-Missoula, who began studying samples from the Pit sixteen years ago. And when employees of the Montana Bureau ...

Testing by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed that the novel H3N2 viruses that recently sickened three Iowa children are similar to swine-origin viruses containing a gene segment from the 2009 H1N1 virus that have been identified in three other states. The CDC, in a statement ...

Livestock growers add almost 25 million pounds of antibiotics and similar medications to livestock feed each year. Feeding tons of antibiotics to healthy animals, a practice under review in the United States and banned in the European Union, might increase the growth of farm animals. In a classic biology textbook example of ...

Imagine a scientist gently swabs your left nostril with a Q-tip and finds that your nose contains hundreds of species of bacteria. That in itself is no surprise; each of us is home to some 100 trillion microbes. But then she makes an interesting discovery: in your nose is a ...

While traces of pharmaceutical compounds are commonly present in wastewater, interactions with bacteria during the treatment process could transform them from non-toxic to toxic forms, a new study suggests. Some drugs can occur in two forms, known as enantiomers. While they are chemically very similar, pairs of enantiomers can have drastically ...

University of Missouri researchers have found that synthetic molecules might prove to be a key in reducing the severity of Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA, the leading genetic cause of infantile death. The work is led by Chris Lorson, a researcher at the Bond Life Sciences Center and a professor in ...

A strain of flu virus that infects dogs has erupted in the New York City area, including northern New Jersey and the lower Hudson Valley. The strain, H3N8, is extremely contagious and is often spread when dogs are kept in confined areas, such as kennels or daycare facilities. For this ...

This bizarre-looking concoction of glass, liquid and tubes could one day bring a whole new meaning to the idea of natural lighting. The new "bio-light" concept designed by Dutch electronics company Philips creates light in the same way that bioluminescent living organisms like fireflies and glow worms do. The phenomenon of bioluminescence ...

Gram-stain of Micrococcus lutea. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

In the human world of manufacturing, many companies are now applying an on-demand, just-in-time strategy to conserve resources, reduce costs and promote production of goods precisely when and where they are most needed. A recent study from Indiana University Bloomington scientists reveals that bacteria have evolved a similar just-in-time strategy ...

Safranin-stained Micrococcus luteus showing sarcinae and other arrangements. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Some bacteria fight off antibiotics even as they starve. For years, scientists believed antibiotics failed to work against starving bacteria because the medicines' target spot within the bacteria had slowed or gone dormant. As it turns out, the bacteria's starvation triggers a reaction that coincidentally helps them defeat antibiotics, a University of ...

One dental researcher thinks he's found a way to permanently stave off the cavity-causing bacteria that lead to expensive and costly trips to the dentist. Wenyuan Shi of the University of California, Los Angeles, has led efforts to develop a mouthwash with technology that kills Streptococcus mutans, the bacteria responsible for ...

Invasive species aren't just exotic animals, scary snakes or annoying insects. They can also be bacteria and viruses that kill people. Although it's difficult to say what the most harmful invasive species is, "I'd probably point to West Nile virus," says Christopher Dionigi of the federal National Invasive Species Council ...

The results of a recent study characterizing microbial communities in public restrooms may be enough to change the ways of those who don't already wash their hands after using the toilet. The study found that restrooms are dominated by human-associated bacteria--particularly those from the skin, gut, and urinary tract. Although ...

Okay, here’s the deal. You and your pals — grad students, hotshot scientists-to-be — are invited to Hawaii to talk about cutting-edge jobs in microbiology. But after you learn that the company’s owner is a crook and a killer, he uses his new technology to shrink you from six feet ...

Efforts to tackle diseases which kill millions each year could be badly affected by a severe shortfall in donations to a worldwide funding body. The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria will make no new grants until 2014, and there is a threat to some existing projects. It asked international ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed three mildly ill children with viruses similar to the swine-origin influenza A (H3N2) viruses identified in three other states. These viruses contain the "matrix (M) gene segment" from the 2009 "Swine Flu" pandemic known as H1N1 virus. This combination of genes ...

The problem with antibiotics? We’re running out of them. Over the last half-decade, our arsenal of powerful bacteria-killing medicines has slowly (though in biological time, rapidly) been depleted as nature, through evolution, outwits our efforts to develop chemical tools that can save us from some of the world’s most deadly diseases. San ...

The Iowa Department of Public Health today reported that a “novel strain of the influenza virus has been detected in three children.” All three of the children were reportedly mildly ill and have recovered. Iowa has increased surveillance for influenza-like-illness to detect any additional cases of infection with this novel ...

The rise of antibiotic resistance is old news by now—everyone knows that bacteria evolve in response to their surroundings to maintain, and enhance, their pathogenicity. What's less clear is exactly how this happens. Although we can identify genetic mutations in bacteria, it has been difficult to determine which of those ...

Most everyone that has been keeping abreast of world events knows that the clock is ticking on antibiotics; bacteria have been slowly developing a resistance and development of new antibiotics has slowed to a crawl, thus the day will soon come that all of the tools were are currently using ...

As we enjoy our most food-oriented holiday tomorrow, nutritionists and food safety experts recommend that particular care be taken to ensure that leftovers -- whether kept for later meals or dispatched home with guests -- don't become a catalyst for the pain, vomiting, and diarrhea that afflicts some 400,000 Americans ...

Bacteria have adapted to live in many niches; from the environmental bacteria that live in the soil and the seas, to the highly specialised intracellular bacteria that rely exclusively on their surrounding host for nutrients. While all bacteria face challenges in adapting their environment to suit them, intracellular bacteria face ...

We all know public bathrooms are lousy with bacteria, but what kind are they, and how did they get there? A study released Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE uses gene sequencing to find out exactly what germs lurk in public restrooms and where they came from. And after reading ...

Acid-fast rods. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Non-acid-fast rods. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Russian engineers are scrambling to save the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft amid ever-bleaker signs the mission may be lost. The probe was launched uneventfully Nov. 8, but soon afterward its thruster failed to fire to send it on a course toward Mars, leaving the spacecraft stranded in Earth orbit. Phobos-Grunt was designed for ...

Anyone who has taken high school biology has likely come into contact with a ciliate. The much-studied paramecium is one of 7,000 species of ciliates, a vast group of microorganisms that share a common morphology: single-celled blobs covered in tiny hairs, or cilia. These cilia — Greek for “eyelash” — ...

The genome of Medicago, a close relative of alfalfa and a long-established model for the study of legume biology, has been sequenced by an international team of scientists, capturing around 94 per cent of its genes. The research gives new insights into the evolution of the Papilionoid subfamily of legumes, which ...

Although scientists have known for centuries that many bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide (H2S) it was thought to be simply a toxic by-product of cellular activity. Now, researchers at NYU School of Medicine have discovered H2S in fact plays a major role in protecting bacteria from the effects of numerous different ...

The FDA has approved a new compound for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients who are allergic to asparaginase derived from Escherichia coli. The agency gave the okay to asparaginase Erwinia chrysanthemi (Erwinaze) as a replacement for E. coli-derived asparaginase or pegylated asparaginase (pegaspargase). The compound is already approved in ...

The superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) has provoked fear in doctors and patients alike because it is endowed with genetic characteristics that make it impervious to many antibiotics, and it can be deadly to boot. Less well known, however, is another class of bacteria that also resist antibiotics, but for ...

Tel Aviv University researchers have developed a computational model that explains how bacteria move in a swarm, which can be applied to man-made technologies, including computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Ph.D. student Adi Shklarsh of TAU has discovered how bacteria collectively gather information about their environment and find an optimal path ...

Gram-stained preparation of Bacillus subtilis showing rods, and spores (empty areas). (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The bacteria Enterococcus can cause infections that typically target the digestive tract or bowel; if the bacteria spread, an abdominal abscess or urinary infection could result. Enterococcus also can invade the bloodstream, leading to meningitis, pneumonia or endocarditis — an infection of the heart valve. Typically the only people who ...

Europe set out plans to boost research into the neglected area of antibiotics on Thursday by promising to accelerate approval of new drugs, while ensuring adequate prices for their makers and promoting industry-wide R&D. Multi-drug resistant bacteria, or so-called superbugs, are a growing threat across Europe, with rates of drug resistance ...

An FDA advisory committee has voted 14-1 in favor of expanding the indication for the pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate vaccine (Prevnar 13) to include use in adults 50 and older. Currently the Pfizer vaccine is approved only for use in children. The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee voted for accelerated approval, ...

A new University of Minnesota study reveals that the release of treated municipal wastewater – even wastewater treated by the highest-quality treatment technology – can have a significant effect on the quantities of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, often referred to as "superbacteria," in surface waters. The study also suggests that wastewater treated using ...

In 1952, two years before his untimely death at the age of 41, the mathematician Alan Turing wrote an influential paper entitled "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis." The paper tackled the problem of how limbs and other structural patterns arise in plants and animals that begin life as undifferentiated blobs ...

It's not unusual for a patient to change doctors. Doctors retire, families move, insurance changes. And sometimes, patients get fired. "Discharging parents from a practice is never easy," says Thomas Tryon, a pediatrician at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo. "I never did it without disappointment that I'd somehow ...

Genomic sequencing of samples from multiple patients during a bacterial epidemic has revealed gene mutations that give the bugs a selective advantage. The large-scale sequencing approach, which is reported today (November 13) in Nature Genetics, should help researchers find chinks in the armor of a wide range of human pathogens. “This ...

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston have retraced the evolution of an unusual bacterial infection as it spread among cystic fibrosis patients by sequencing scores of samples collected during the outbreak, since contained. A significant achievement in genetic pathology, the work also suggests a new way to ...

University of Southern California scientists have identified two new molecules that can kill lymphoma cells in mice, suggesting more effective cancer killers than existing drugs.he peptides, molecules derived from a cancer-causing virus, target an enzyme in cancerous cells that regulates a widely researched tumour suppressor protein known as p53. The peptides ...

The 2012 Laureate for North America is Professor Bonnie Bassler, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Principal Investigator, Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. Professor Bassler is a world-renowned expert on how bacteria "talk" to each other using a chemical language in order to coordinate their behavior ...

A vaccine or new drugs against malaria could be developed, British scientists said, after they made a critical discovery about the way the most deadly species of malaria parasite invades human red blood cells. Researchers from the Sanger Institute pinpointed a single receptor for a protein that is critical for the ...

Thanks to the work of a Simon Fraser University researcher and two of his students, science is closer to finding a new way of combatting infections caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli) and other related bacteria. E. coli bacteria are found naturally in human intestines and perform some important digestive duties. ...

A research team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has provided the first look* at a genetic structure that may play a critical role in the reproduction of the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV), more commonly known as the “fish flu.” A scourge in fish farms with ...

Scientists have made a major breakthrough that could lead to a vaccine against the deadly tropical disease melioidosis, which infects millions of people, a study published on Thursday said. The findings in the journal Science and show how a toxin produced by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei kills cells by preventing protein ...

Healthy children infected with the H1N1 influenza virus during the 2009 pandemic were more likely to die if they were also infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to a new study. The risk of dying increased eightfold for otherwise healthy children who had both H1N1 and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), compared with ...

CDC has confirmed two additional cases of human infection with a swine–origin influenza A (H3N2) virus that carries the M gene from the 2009 H1N1 virus. The cases were reported by Maine and Indiana. There is no evidence at this time of an epidemiological link between these two patients or ...

Gram-negative rods, possibly E. coli. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Critical genetic secrets of a bacterium that holds potential for removing toxic and radioactive waste from the environment have been revealed in a study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The researchers have provided the first ever map of the genes ...

Pediatricians write more than 10 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions -- for conditions like the flu and asthma -- every year, suggests a new study. Those ailments, and others not caused by bacteria, don't respond to the drugs. But misuse of antibiotics contributes to drug resistance -- so those same medications might ...

Flagella stain of Salmonella typhi. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Flu shot? Check. Immunity-boosting diet? Uh … what? If you don't have good nutrition, you're missing a key weapon against colds and flu. Basics include the famously nutrient-dense leafy greens, berries and nuts. You may be surprised by these six other top immune boosters suggested by Tonia Reinhard, registered dietitian and author ...

In a study appearing online yesterday in Nature, an American research team used metagenomic sequencing to not only look at the microbes, genes, and pathways found in Alaskan permafrost samples, but also to track the changes that occur in these communities once the permafrost thaws. Because the site tested is predicted ...

Gram-negative rods and coccobacilli. (Proteus vulgaris) (approx X1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

If you think buying a lollipop contaminated with saliva from senders whose children are infected will protect your kids from chicken pox, think again - because it probably won't. More likely, you will be exposing them to more serious infections, such as hepatitis. A US attorney in Nashville, Jerry Martin, ...

A bacterium discovered by two high school students here has the ability to decolorize wastewater created when dyeing textiles, offering the potential for a new, environmentally-friendly decolorizing treatment. Ehime is a top producer of towels and paper, and colored wastewater created by dyeing has presented a problem for these industries. Although ...

Scientists are enlisting two unlikely allies in the fight against C. difficile bacteria. Camels and Llamas are supplying the antibodies for the latest research against the infection, which is frequently transmitted in hospitals and can be fatal. Antibodies from camels and llamas are 10 times smaller than those found in humans, ...

Two new cases of human infection with a flu virus that has been sporadically jumping to people from pigs have been spotted in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control reported Friday. The new cases, in Maine and Indiana, bring to seven the number seen in the U.S. since July. ...

You’ve probably heard of "chickenpox parties," where parents get unvaccinated kids together (in the home of an infected child) in the hopes they'll catch the disease. They think making their kids suffer through the disease will help them develop stronger immunity than immunization would provide. But now the buzz is all ...

If infants encounter a wide range of bacteria they are less at risk of developing allergic disease later in life. This is the conclusion of research from the University of Copenhagen, which suggests completely new factors in many modern lifestyle diseases. Oversensitivity diseases, or allergies, now affect 25 per cent of ...

Working with lab cultures and mice, Johns Hopkins scientists have found that a strain of the common gut pathogen Bacteroides fragilis causes colon inflammation and increases activity of a gene called spermine oxidase (SMO) in the intestine. The effect is to expose the gut to hydrogen peroxide – the caustic, ...

With 29 people now confirmed dead, the listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupe from one Colorado farm is officially the deadliest foodborne illness outbreak in the United States since 1924, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak comes from Rocky Ford-brand cantaloupes sold by Jensen Farms near Holly, ...

Gram-negative rods. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Transplanting fecal matter with healthy bacteria into patients with refractory Clostridium difficile infections can lead to quick relief, researchers said here. Fecal microbiota transplant had a 91% rate of success -- defined as no recurrence within three months -- among 77 patients with refractory C. difficile infection, Mark Mellow, MD, of ...

A bacterium found in sewage water could revolutionize modern medicine. It's basically the bacterial equivalent of a vampire, spending its time hunting other bacteria and sucking out all their nutrients. This could revolutionize antibotics and stop the rise of "super bugs." The bacterium in question is called Micavibrio aeruginosavorus. Scientists have ...

Nearly half of hospital rooms of patients infected with drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii are contaminated with the bacteria, a small new survey shows. Surfaces such as bedrails, drawer handles and touchpads are particularly prone to harboring the germ. That could pose big problems for hospital staff and future patients if ...

U.S. researchers say they've discovered how a cancer-causing bacterium attacks a cell's energy infrastructure, ultimately causing the cell to self-destruct. Helicobacter pylori are the only bacteria known to survive in the human stomach and infection with the bacterium is associated with an increased risk of gastric cancer, scientists at the University ...

Dark-field preparation of Treponema pallidum. (approx X1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Overuse of antibiotics has led to the creation of drug-resistant bacteria — so-called superbugs, like methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. But now some researchers are exploring an equally unsettling possibility: Antibiotic abuse may also be contributing to the increasing incidence of obesity, as well as allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and gastroesophageal ...

Crystal violet stained cocci. Tetrads, and diplococcal and staphylococcal arrangements are present. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A gene formerly known as a tumor suppressor may play a role in a so-called "functional cure" for HIV, a researcher said here. The gene, dubbed p21, is highly overexpressed in the CD4-positive T cells of "elite controllers" -- people infected with HIV who do not lose immune cells or have ...

For years, Dr. Robert A. Holt, a genomics researcher at the British Columbia Cancer Agency, wrestled with a question about colon cancer. Might it be caused, or pushed along, by a bacterial infection? Cancers of the liver, stomach and cervix have all been linked to microbes, he knew. And if there ...

In an astonishing new study published in Nature today, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried in Munich, Germany say they have found evidence that suggests multiple sclerosis (MS) is triggered by natural intestinal flora, the so-called friendly bacteria that reside in the gut. They found genetically ...

A recent study has found that the bacteria that can cause stomach inflammation and ulcers do not seem to be related to overenlargement of adenoids, despite earlier studies reporting high colonization rates of Helicobacter pylori in adenoids. Researchers from an Australian university examined 93 adenoid biopsy specimens—78 hyperplastic and 15 normal—from ...

Should the anthrax vaccine be tested in children? It will be a while longer before the government decides. An advisory board said Friday that ethical issues need to be resolved — but if that can be accomplished the vaccine can be tested in children to be sure it's safe and to ...

Federal health investigators landed in St. Louis Friday to help determine the source and scope of the E. coli outbreak that has so far sickened 23 people across the region. There were no new illnesses reported on Friday. Four scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta arrived ...

Reporting in Science Translational Medicine, researchers write that the bacteria in yogurt affect people's digestion—but not by repopulating gut flora. Microbiologist Jeffrey Gordon talks about these findings and the future of using bacteria as therapy for digestive disorders such as diarrhea.

Safranin stained rods. (approx. 1000 X). taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The bacteria in our gut may be controlling our lives more than we ever realized. In the latest findings, published today in Nature, researchers report a link between gut bacteria and the development of multiple sclerosis in mice. Studies in mice have also examined gut bacteria in relation to obesity, depression ...

Microscopic view of large numbers of bacilli showing streptobacillus arrangement. (approx. 1000 X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Each year more than one million patients receive cancer treatment in an outpatient oncology clinic. Despite advances in oncology care, infections from both community and health care settings remain a major cause of hospitalization and death among cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. To help protect this vulnerable patient population, ...

The Obama administration is wrestling with the thorny question of whether scientists should inject healthy children with the anthrax vaccine to see whether the shots would safely protect them against a bioterrorism attack. The other option is to wait until an attack happens and then try to gather data from children ...

Patients with implants can develop infections because of a biofilm of persistent bacterial bugs on the surfaces of their devices. Researchers found that some strains of the bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, have just a few genetic variants in the proteins on their surfaces that make them more likely to form these ...

Gram stain of mixed culture of cocci and rods.Streptobacillus morphological arrangement is shown. (Approx X1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

It's an annual autumn rite for many: trooping to the doctor's office or pharmacy for the jab that might stave off sniffles and aches during the flu season. Scientists would love to make this ritual history, if only they could come up with a flu vaccine that would work for many ...

A significant percentage of colon cancers could be caused by a bacteria and -- if that’s indeed the case -- some tumors eventually may be prevented or treated with antibiotics, suggests a new research finding from the Broad Institute and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Using gene sequencing techniques, the researchers found ...

Several influenza vaccine adjuvants that have been used in Europe for many years may be incorporated into US vaccines soon, according to a presenter here at the IDSA 49th Annual Meeting. Martin Friede, PhD, who heads the Technology Transfer Team within the Department on Innovation, Information, Evidence and Research at the ...

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating a human case in Cumberland County of “novel influenza virus of swine origin” — a new strain of flu associated with pigs. State Epidemiologist Stephen Sears said Thursday that a 7-year-old girl from Cumberland County became ill with flu-like symptoms in ...

After its initial appearance in New York in 1999, West Nile virus spread across the United States in just a few years and is now well established throughout North and South America. Both the mosquitoes that transmit it and the birds that are important hosts for the virus are abundant ...

Bacteria infecting parasitic worms that cause river blindness and elephantiasis in people, as well as heart worms in dogs, lead to bigger egg batches in some infected insects. Wolbachia bacteria are widespread parasites, infecting both insects and nematode worms. Infected worms are linked to serious human diseases, but the bacteria ...

The Generating Antibiotics Incentives Now (GAIN) Act, introduced this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), aims to "spur development of new antibiotics to combat the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," according to a press release issued by Sen. Blumenthal. "Superbugs or mutant germs resistant to present antibiotics ...

Right now, just one in 1000 cows that pass through the deathly gates of an industrial slaughterhouse is tested for harmful pathogens. That's because the current method for testing meat costs $50 and takes 12 hours. The consequences of this languorous process speak for themselves: 5000 Americans die from food-borne ...

Gram-negative rods –Alcaligenes faecalis species (approx X1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The largest U.S. outbreak of measles to occur in 15 years -- affecting 214 children so far -- is likely driven by travelers returning from abroad and by too many unvaccinated U.S. children, according to new research. The finding could highlight the dangers of a trend among some U.S. parents to ...

New University of Alberta research shows the first evidence that the first oxygen-breathing bacteria occupied and thrived on land 100 million years earlier than previously thought. The researchers show that the most primitive form of aerobic-respiring life on land came into existence 2.48 billion years ago. The research team, led by ...

Gram-negative rods – Morganella morganii species (approx X1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

British scientists say they used bacteria and DNA to make basic components for digital devices, which could pave the way for biological computing devices. Imperial College London scientists have successfully constructed logic gates -- which process information in devices such as computers and microprocessors -- out of harmless gut bacteria and ...

A new analysis of panda poop has finally answered an age-old question: How do giant pandas survive on a diet that's 99 percent bamboo when they have the guts of carnivores? Plant-eating animals tend to have longer intestines to aid in digesting fibrous material, a trait the black-and-white bears lack. What's more, ...

Gram-negative rods –Pseudomonas aeruginosa species (approx X1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Scientists have taken another step towards biological computing, with the creation of logic gates from gut bacteria and DNA. While something similar's been done before, the team says its logic gates behave more like the standard electronic version. They're also modular, which means that they can be fitted together to make ...

An experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline halved the risk of African children getting malaria in a major clinical trial, making it likely to become the world's first shot against the deadly disease. Final-stage trial data released on Tuesday showed it gave protection against clinical and severe malaria in 5- to 17-month-olds in ...

Non-acid-fast rods (Corynebacterium species). (approx. X 1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on Microbeworld.

What does it take to transform a microbe normally found in the intestinal tract into a cancer-killing machine? These and other questions about the applicability of synthetic biology abound. For cancer research in particular, the field of syn bio could both reveal new insights into the disease and potentially lead ...

First it was chess. Then it was Jeopardy. Now computers are at it again, but this time they are trying to automate the scientific process itself. An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Vanderbilt University, Cornell University, and CFD Research Corporation Inc., has taken a major step toward this goal by demonstrating that ...

Researchers announced Wednesday that they've managed to reconstruct the genome of the Black Death, the illness that wiped out around half of Europe's population in just a few years in the mid-1300s. Ray Suarez discusses the developments with geneticist Hendrick Poinar of McMaster University. Click 'source' to watch video.

Most people know that leaf mould is a good thing. But it's not nutritionally rich and is at best a free soil improver and an adequate mulch. Offer people leaf mould or horse manure and they fight over the latter. And yet I have come to think differently over the ...

Instead of waiting days to discover what dangerous bacteria a sample of blood, water or food may contain, as Windsor professor has a method he believes will take a minute. "It's just a completely different way of looking at how to identify bacteria," says Steven Rehse, an assistant professor of physics ...

Gluconeogenesis is the ability to re-synthesize sugar out of simpler chemical building blocks. It is a central pathway of the metabolism in humans as well as simple bacteria. Researchers have been unable to scientifically analyse this conclusively until now. Together with the research groups led by Prof. Dr. Oliver Einsle at ...

Scientists from California and Hong Kong genetically engineered bacterial cells so that they spontaneously grow in concentric rings. The number of rings can be controlled by altering expression of a single gene. They say the findings could shed light on the complex patterning that takes place during development. "Natural systems ...

We tend to get overly focused on bacteria that are trying to kill us (and there’s no shortage of those), but there are large populations of bacteria that live in or on us without causing any problems, and some of them are even helpful. This is especially true in the ...

One in six cellphones in Britain may be contaminated with fecal matter that can spread E. coli, likely because so many people don't wash their hands properly after using the toilet, a new study contends. The findings also suggest that many people lie about their hygiene habits, according to the researchers ...

If some twisted genius vaporized all 10 trillion cells in your body—along with the hair, the fingernails, and other tissue they create—it would not leave empty space behind. A body-shaped cloud made of bacteria, viruses, and other former stowaways would hover briefly in the air. The cloud would outline your ...

Consider this: The average person’s body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only maybe one in 10 is human. This isn’t the latest Hollywood horror flick, or some secret genetic engineering experiment run amok. This, it turns out, is nature’s way: The human cells that form our skin, eyes, ears, brain and ...

After European researchers reported in April that they had identified three basic combinations of microbiota, known as “enterotypes,” they began receiving e-mails from people hoping to find out which one they had and how that might be affecting their health. Over the summer, the group launched my.microbes — a social network ...

I ate a lot of cantaloupe in the weeks before a listeria outbreak led to a recall in September. And probably like many of you out there, I found myself wondering: Is there any chance that I ate some of the contaminated melons? "Probably a lot of people ate this cantaloupe," ...

In 1897, Edward Dunham placed a vial of human bacterial spores into a time capsule for future scientists. Working as a bacteriologist at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in Manhattan, he wrote in a note that "…future generations will let us know how long these spores last," according to a CBS News ...

A weakened strain of the Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria could be used as a vaccine against the world's biggest cause of infectious blindness, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health. Trachoma, which affects an estimated 40 million people around the world, could be counteracted by a dose of the ...

Dozens of foreign insects and plant diseases slipped undetected into the United States in the years after 9/11, when authorities were so focused on preventing another attack that they overlooked a pest explosion that threatened the quality of the nation's food supply. At the time, hundreds of agricultural scientists responsible for ...

Gram-stained Staphylococcus aureus. (approx. X 1000). taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Acid-fast rods. (approx X 1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Over millions of years, natural processes turned the buried remains of dinosaurs, plants, and ancient fish into crude oil. Pamela Silver and her colleagues aim to compress the oil-forming process to nearly instantaneous, with some carbon dioxide, a dash of electricity, and a lot of help from the diminutive star of ...

Researchers with the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have released an upgrade to the institute's ENteric Immunity SImulator (ENISI) software, which models immune responses to beneficial and harmful bacteria that enter the gastrointestinal tract of mice, pigs, and humans. ENISI allows users to create enteric systems such as the ...

Timothy R Walsh , professor at Cardiff University,UK, and co-author of the controversial " superbug" study published last year in British medical journal 'The Lancet', tells Kounteya Sinha that NDM-1 is now a public health catastrophe. How serious is the NDM1 threat for India and globally? When we published our first paper ...

What is Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome? Hemolytic uremic syndrome is a severe, life-threatening complication of an E. coli bacterial infection that was first described in 1955, and is now recognized as the most common cause of acute kidney failure in childhood. E. coli O157:H7 is responsible for over 90% of the cases ...

Escherichia coli O26 does not appear to cause severe disease in children, according to an epidemiologic study of a recent outbreak in an Oregon child care center. In all, 60% of 10 infected children and staff were asymptomatic, and none developed illness more serious than diarrhea, investigators reported at the annual ...

While fermentation has been important since prehistoric times, it really took off at the beginning of the 20th century when microorganisms were used to make organic acids. By the 1940s, antibiotic production had become the new application and this moved microbes to the forefront of industrial biology. From the 1940s to ...

Each year, plant viruses and fungal attacks lead to crop losses of up to 30 percent. That is why it is important to detect plant disease early on. Yet laboratory tests are expensive and often time-consuming. Researchers are now developing a low-cost quick test for use on site. The farmer casts ...

The anaerobic oxidation of ammonia (anammox) is an important pathway in the nitrogen cycle that was only discovered in the 1980s. Currently, scientists estimate that about 50 percent of the nitrogen in the atmosphere is forged by this process. A group of specialized bacteria perform the anammox reaction, but so ...

Terry Hazen, an environmental biologist and authority on bioremediation and bioenergy with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been named the tenth University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair. Hazen will serve as the Governor’s Chair for Environmental Biotechnology. He begins on December 1. Hazen will become a faculty member in the ...

Researchers in Winnipeg's National Microbiology lab must now obtain extra approval before they transport lethal pathogens, after a "miscommunication" three years ago left senior officials scrambling to find out why a shipment of Level 4 viruses was sent out of the secure lab. In the summer of 2008, one of Winnipeg's ...

A total of 21 people nationwide have now died in the listeriosis outbreak linked to cantaloupes from a Colorado farm, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. In all, 109 people in 23 states have become sick from the outbreak, and that number could continue to climb, the CDC ...

Stained blood smear preparation showing spiral morphology. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

It was 1897. William McKinley took office as President of the United States. A New York Sun editorial told 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon that, yes, there is a Santa Claus. And someone at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City buried a time capsule full of bacteria in the ...

Magnified 475X, this photomicrograph depicts some of the structural morphology of numerous Trichophyton violaceum fungal organisms. This dermatophyte had been grown in a medium of Sabouraud dextrose agar, and of note are the organism’s mycelia, or branching hyphae, i.e., the vegetative portion of the fungus, and ovoid-shaped, thick-walled chlamydospores. What are ...

After the cantaloupe-associated listeriosis outbreak linked to a Colorado farm that has left 15 people dead and 84 sick across 19 states, it is romaine lettuce now threatening to spread the infection in North America. A random sample of romaine lettuce from True Leaf Farms of California taken by the U.S. ...

The cameras in our cell phones have dramatically changed the way we share the special moments in our lives, making photographs instantly available to friends and family. Now, the imaging sensor chips that form the heart of these built-in cameras are helping engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) ...

Imagine a vaccine against smoking: People trying to quit would light up a cigarette and feel nothing. Or a vaccine against cocaine, one that would prevent addicts from enjoying the drug’s high. Though neither is imminent, both are on the drawing board, as are vaccines to combat other addictions. While ...

Tissue specimen showing spirochete (Treponema pallidum) (970X). Taken from the Wistriech Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Scientists on Sunday said they had gained insights into a remarkable bacterium that lives without oxygen and transforms ammonium, the ingredient of urine, into hydrazine, a rocket fuel. So-called anammox -- for anaerobic ammonium oxidation -- germs caused a sensation when they were first identified in the 1990s, but uncovering their ...

Three scientists who unlocked secrets of the body's immune system, opening doors to new vaccines and cancer treatments, won the 2011 Nobel prize for medicine Monday. American Bruce Beutler and French biologist Jules Hoffmann, who studied the first stages of immune responses to attack, share the $1.5 million award with Canadian-born ...

A gene-based treatment for HIV was safe and well tolerated in two small clinical trials, and there are hints that the method is at least a first step toward a so-called "functional cure," researchers said here. The method involves genetically modifying a patient's CD4-positive T cells -- the target of HIV ...

It appears that germs are naturally craftier at dodging antibiotics than we've thought. Bacteria, recent research suggests, have a lot more experience at making adjustments to hostile environments than just the 80 years or so that humans have been trying to quash them with manufactured medicines. Scientists know that thousands of bacteria ...

This spring, Nimbic Systems, based near Houston, Texas, received FDA clearance for their Air Barrier System, a unique medical device for reducing surgical-incision site contamination by infection-causing microorganisms. The Air Barrier System, or ABS, creates a "cocoon" of highly pure air that surrounds a surgical incision site. The cocoon isolates the ...

Fair warning to germaphobes: This story might cause spontaneous itchiness or an immediate desire for hand sanitizer. Still with us? Read on, brave soul. Human skin and hair are the preferred habitat for hordes of bacteria. There could be thousands of species camped right now on your arms and legs, nestled ...

A bacterium found in soil is a showing promise as a way of delivering cancer drugs into tumours. Spores of the Clostridium sporogenes bacterium can grow within tumours because there is no oxygen. UK and Dutch scientists have been able to genetically engineer an enzyme into the bacteria to activate a cancer ...

A rare virus has killed three people and sickened nearly 100 in Japan, the Philippines, the United States and the Netherlands over the past two years, US health authorities said Friday. The culprit is human enterovirus 68 (HEV68), and its respiratory symptoms can be particularly dangerous to children, the US Centers ...

The deaths caused by listeria bacteria on cantaloupe is a warning that both the food industry and the government need to do more to protect the public. The outbreak has already sickened more than 70 people in 18 states and killed at least 15 of them, mostly elderly, in eight ...

Antibiotic resistant E. coli was much more prevalent in villages situated along roads than in rural villages located away from roads, which suggests that roads play a major role in the spread or containment of antibiotic resistant bacteria, commonly called superbugs, a new study finds. Many studies on various infectious diseases ...

Gram-positive cocci showing staphylococcus arrangement (970X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

University of California, Davis scientists have developed a self-cleaning cotton fabric that can kill bacteria and break down toxic chemicals such as pesticide residues when exposed to light. "The new fabric has potential applications in biological and chemical protective clothing for health care, food processing, and farmworkers, as well as military ...

Health officials say as many as 16 people have died from possible listeria illnesses traced to Colorado cantaloupes, the deadliest food outbreak in more than a decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that 72 illnesses, including 13 deaths, are linked to the tainted fruit. State and local ...

Long-awaited results from a Phase II study of ibalizumab, an antibody-based therapy that has been in early stage development for several years, were reported at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) on September 17 in Chicago. Though the results raise more questions than answers about the ...

UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu. "I was amazed that virtually ...

Yale scientists using bits of material from the human immune system have developed a compound that can neutralize or kill several varieties of drug-resistant and other dangerous bacteria. Drug-resistant bacteria are an increasing risk to the health of the world's population. The new compound's ability to kill bacteria in the ...

Scientists at Tufts University have refined a method that allows people to send messages using fluorescent strains of Escherichia coli. There's enough color combinations to encode the entire alphabet, the numbers to 9 and a few symbols. The procedure, called steganography by printed arrays of microbes (SPAM), starts in the ...

Confession: I positively hate acne. While my face only bears the most subtle of scars, in my mind the red pimply warzone that covered it back in high school is still fresh, clear and just begging to be popped. Clearasil. Face washes. Acidic astringents. Creams. Prescription antibiotics. I tried them all ...

Social networking sites Facebook and Twitter have inspired five students at the University of the Witwatersrand to take on the world with "tweeting" bacteria that could help fight cancer. The team will compete with its concept, Bio-Tweet, against 180 teams from around the world at the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition. The ...

Vaccine protection against pertussis may wane sharply for children more than three years after their last booster, potentially leaving some middle-schoolers at risk for the disease, a researcher reported here. Analysis of cases in California's Marin County during last year's whooping cough outbreak found the highest rate of disease among vaccinated ...

An antibody approach to HIV treatment was safe and well tolerated, but reduced viral loads in less than half of treatment-experienced patients, a researcher said here. The compound, dubbed ibalizumab, is a humanized monoclonal antibody that binds to CD4-positive T cells and blocks the entry of HIV, according to Stanley Lewis, ...

A strain of genetically enhanced bacteria developed by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may pave the way for new synthetic drugs and new ways of manufacturing medicines and biofuels, according to a paper published September 18 in Nature Chemical Biology. For the first time, the scientists were able ...

The owners of a German sewage treatment plant called on scientists to investigate Wednesday after they claimed playing Mozart motivates the plant's microbes and makes them more productive. Roland Meinusch, manager of the plant in Treuenbrietzen, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) southeast of Berlin, said by playing Mozart's Magic Flute on ...

A traveling exhibition about microbes is on display at the Gray Fossil Site. “Microbes: Invisible Invaders ... Amazing Allies” will be exhibited at the East Tennessee State University and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum and Visitor Center through May 6.

Under a relatively low magnification of 121X, this digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of an untreated water specimen extracted from a wild stream mainly used to control flooding during inclement weather, revealed the presence of unidentified organisms, which included bacteria, protozoa, and algae. In this particular view, numbers of what ...

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how a novel type of antibody works against pneumococcal bacteria. The findings, which could improve vaccines against pneumonia, appear in the September/October issue of mBio, the online journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Until recently, scientists thought that ...

A complex of proteins in the bacterium E.coli that plays a critical role in defending the microbe from viruses and other invaders has been discovered to have the shape of a seahorse by researchers with the U.S Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This discovery holds far ...

This is an image of Clostridium difficile colonies grown on cycloserine mannitol agar after 48 hours. C. difficile, an anaerobic gram-positive rod, is the most frequently identified cause of Antibiotic-Associated Diarrhea (AAC). It accounts for approximately 15-25% of all episodes of AAC. Thanks to the CDC's PHIL for this image.

A strain of genetically enhanced bacteria developed by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may pave the way for new synthetic drugs and new ways of manufacturing medicines and biofuels, according to a paper published September 18 in Nature Chemical Biology. For the first time, the scientists were able ...

For the first time, researchers have sustainably produced hydrogen gas, a potential source of clean energy, using only water and bacteria. The challenge now, scientists say, is to scale up the process to provide large amounts of hydrogen for various purposes, such as fueling vehicles or small generators. Hydrogen may be ...

Participants discuss various emerging issues in the field of infectious disease including drug-resistant malaria; epidemiology and management of cholera in Haiti and other topics. Guests: Arjen Dondorp, MD, PhD, Mahidol-Oxford, Res. Unit, Bangkok, Thailand Scott Dowell, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Watch a live streamed scientific session at ICAAC hosted by Vincent Racaniello and co-host Michael Schmidt. Audience participation was encouraged so many questions came from MicrobeWorld readers. Guests: Stuart B. Levy, MD,Professor, Tufts Univ. School of Medicine/CSO, Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., Boston, MA. ...

Despite high infant immunization rates, pertussis infection rates are increasing in many countries and pertussis outbreaks have occurred. Recent control strategies for pertussis have focused on immunizing adolescents and adults with pertussis booster vaccines in an effort to provide herd immunity. Participants will discuss these strategies as well as latebreaking ...

US researchers say they have demonstrated how cells fuelled by bacteria can be "self-powered" and produce a limitless supply of hydrogen. Until now, they explained, an external source of electricity was required in order to power the process. However, the team added, the current cost of operating the new technology is too ...

When scientists struggle with a problem for over a decade, few of them think, “I know! I’ll ask computer gamers to help.” That, however, exactly what Firas Khatib from the University of Washington did. The result: he and his legion of gaming co-authors have cracked a longstanding problem in AIDS ...

Hospitalized patients on proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) have an increased risk of diarrhea associated with Clostridium difficile (CDAD), Japanese researchers reported. In a prospective cohort study of nearly 800 patients, those on the stomach acid-lowering medications were more than three times as likely to develop CDAD than those who were not ...

The emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics and efforts by scientists trying to cope with the problem top the agenda at a medical convention under way here this weekend. "The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide is clearly the hot topic because one can observe bacteria becoming more resistant everywhere," and more ...

The launch of new antibiotics in the 1980s led many in the scientific field to believe that fight against bacteria had been won. Since then, at least one group of bacteria known as Gram-negatives (which includes pathogens responsible for hospital-acquired pneumonia and bloodstream infections as well as E. coli and ...

Scientists are developing a “glowing bandage to treat infection”, The Guardian has today reported. The news is based on a new technique devised by researchers at the University of Sheffield, who are currently developing visual methods for quickly identifying the presence of bacteria that could infect a wound. Their technique involves ...

After getting a cut, many Americans will reach for a tube of over-the-counter antibiotic cream to ward off infection. But that widespread habit, a new paper suggests, may be contributing to the rise of one of the most concerning strains of drug-resistant bacteria. Japanese researchers looked at 261 samples of ...

Health officials have issued a warning for cantaloupes from a revered melon-producing area of the U.S. state of Colorado amid a bacteria outbreak blamed for four deaths in the state and New Mexico, troubling farmers who depend on sales of the fruit. The warning from the Centers for Disease Control and ...

Gram-positive cocci showing various morphological arrangements including diplococcus and tetrads. (approx. X970). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ludwig, then 65, a retired corrections officer from Bridgeton, N.J., felt his life draining away and thought he had nothing ...

Microscopic view of gram-positive Listeria monocytogenes (rods) (approx. original X 1,000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

An investigation into a listeria outbreak that has killed at least one person has expanded to include three states where possibly tainted cantaloupe was consumed, Colorado health officials said on Friday. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a release that of the nine confirmed cases of the ...

The Minnesota food company that recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey last month linked to a salmonella outbreak is pulling an additional 185,000 pounds of turkey for the same reason. The voluntary recall, announced Sunday by Cargill Inc., comes in the wake of one of the largest meat recalls in ...

Scientists cannot stop climate change to save the world's coral reefs, but they might be able to make reefs more resilient to it. Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota is at the forefront of research aimed at figuring out what makes some corals better at fending off disease when temperatures rise. The ...

A team of researchers from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Xiao-Liang Wang and Yi-Jian Yao), summarized all the available information on the insect species associated with the Tibetan medicinal fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis through an extensive literature survey and analyzed their relationships with the fungus. The study was published ...

A Research team led by scientists from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) published a paper in the Sept. 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, showing that Antibiotic resistance of a superbug called vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) is being caused by a specific change ...

Both live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) nasal spray and trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) shots protect children aged 6 months to 3 years from influenza and produced similar levels of antibodies, but a recent study found that only the nasal spray induces production of 3 T-cell subtypes that may confer ...

Scientists may have found a critical weakness in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria. Researchers say the discovery provides a promising target for new malaria therapies. The weakness is related to a structure inside malaria cells called an apicoplast. About a decade ago, molecular biologist Joseph DeRisi of the University ...

Depleting immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies through immunoadsorption ameliorated neurological complications in 10 of 12 patients with Escherichia coli O104:H4–associated hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a new study suggests. In May 2011, northern Germany experienced an outbreak of Shiga toxin–producing enterohemorrhagic E coli O104:H4 infections. Many of the infected patients developed postenteritis HUS ...

Preliminary research on Fusarium, a group of fungi that includes devastating pathogens of plants and animals, shows how these microbes travel through the air. Researchers now believe that with improvements on this preliminary research, there will be a better understanding about crop security, disease spread, and climate change. Engineers and biologists ...

Good hygiene has saved millions of lives, protecting people from countless bacterial and viral infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there is growing concern that strict adherence to good hygiene, though a valuable means of protecting health, has left humans open to other forms of ...

Scientists have long known that animals and plants are governed by a circadian rhythm—a roughly 24-hour cycle guiding biological processes that is linked to alternating periods of light and dark. We know, for instance, that our bodies are entrained, or synchronized, by sunlight. Our cells would drift out of phase ...

A good way to make yourself unpopular at dinner parties is to point out that a typical person is, from a microbiologist’s perspective, a walking, talking Petri dish. An extraordinary profusion of microscopic critters inhabit every crack and crevice of the typical human, so many that they probably outnumber the ...

Simple crystal violet stained preparation mainly consisting of B. subtilis spores with a few scattered rods. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A tick-borne infection known as Babesiosis, which can cause severe disease and even death, is becoming a growing threat to the U.S. blood supply, government researchers said on Monday. There are currently no diagnostic tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can detect the infection before people donate ...

Bacteria can generally be divided into two classes: those with just one membrane and those with two. Now researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have used a powerful imaging technique to find what they believe may be the missing link between the two classes, as well as a ...

Because most cervical cancer cases and some less common malignancies are caused by human papillomavirus, or HPV, area physicians and public health experts were thrilled when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 approved the first vaccine to prevent HPV. But five years later, local pediatricians and family physicians say ...

A strain of harmless bacteria that live in soil could soon be helping to kill cancer tumors, thanks to researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK and the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands who are presenting their work at a conference in York, England, this week. They ...

A new candidate vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) was shown to be effective and safe in animal studies. Researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York report in the 4 September online issue of Nature Medicine how they developed and tested the vaccine in mice. They ...

When it comes to the ability of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori to effectively colonize the stomach and eventually cause ulcers it all comes down to a single protein. H. pylori strains infect half of all humans worldwide and contribute to the development of peptic ulcers and gastric cancer. They cannot survive ...

We’ve all heard that the overuse of antibiotics is making them less effective and fueling the rise of dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. But did you know it may also be fueling the rise of obesity, diabetes, allergies and asthma? So says Dr. Martin Blaser, microbiologist and infectious disease specialist at New York ...

Deep inside your intestines, there's a complex microbial ecosystem, which scientists say contains nearly a thousand species of bacteria. A lot of recent research has shown that the community of gut microbes acts almost like another organ in your body — they're that crucial. They exert a pronounced effect on the ...

Biologists have long known that organisms from bacteria to humans use the 24 hour cycle of light and darkness to set their biological clocks. But exactly how these clocks are synchronized at the molecular level to perform the interactions within a population of cells that depend on the precise timing ...

The death of Courtney Nash -- the 16-year-old who succumbed to a deadly brain infection last week after going for a dip in a Floridariver -- marks the third case this summer of death after exposure to the waterborne amoeba Naegleria fowleri. Earlier in the season, according to news ...

Army Maj. Jittawadee Murphy peers into a paper bucket full of freshly hatched Anopheles stephanii mosquitoes. She needs to separate out the females — the only ones that bite — so they can be infected with malaria. It turns out that sexing mosquitoes is easy. "We kind of trick them," says Murphy, ...

In this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC scientists reported that inappropriate use of antibiotic drugs in children has decreased since the early 1990s. But prescribing of antibiotics for conditions such as colds and otitis media remains too high worldwide, and the CDC report concluded by saying, "Inappropriate antibiotic ...

Engineers at UCLA have developed an inexpensive, portable, lensless microscope. This microscope may find its use in improving health care and sanitation in areas where sophisticated equipment is unavailable or unusable. The details of the microscope were published in the open-source journal Biomedical Optics Express. BBC News reports that the microscope ...

In the dark depths of the ocean, mysterious organisms have been converting carbon dioxide into a form useful for life. Now scientists have identified some suspects: "twilight" microbes from 2,625 feet below the ocean surface that are turning inorganic carbon into useable food. The job of capturing carbon, crucial to sustaining ...

An analysis of 30,000-year-old bacteria whose DNA has been recovered from the Yukon permafrost shows that they were able to resist antibiotics. Antibiotics, before they became used as drugs, were natural products. The new finding is the first direct evidence that antibiotic resistance is a widespread natural phenomenon that preceded ...

Simple safranin stain of B. subtilis and central location of unstained spores. (Approx. original X 1000). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Virologists warned on Tuesday that there was no vaccine against a mutant strain of H5N1 bird flu now spreading in China and Vietnam and called for closer monitoring of the disease in poultry and wild birds to stop it spreading to people. The call came after the U.N. Food and Agriculture ...

The bacteria behind the Black Death has a very unusual history. Its ancestor is an unassuming soil bacterium and the current strains of Yersinia pestis still infects thousands of people annually, but no longer cause the suite of horrifying symptoms associated with the medieval plagues. The radical differences between the ...

All life on Earth relies on a standard set of 20 molecules called amino acids to build the proteins that carry out life's essential actions. But did it have to be this way? All living creatures on this planet use the same 20 amino acids, even though there are hundreds available ...

Yesterday's news could be tomorrow's fuel. Tulane University scientists discovered a strain of clostridia bacteria, dubbed "TU-103," that can devour old newspapers to produce butanol, a substitute for gasoline. Old editions of the Times Picayune, New Orleans' daily newspaper, have been successfully used by the researchers to produce butanol from the cellulose ...

Sexual relations between ancient humans and their evolutionary cousins are critical for our modern immune systems, researchers report in Science journal. Mating with Neanderthals and another ancient group called Denisovans introduced genes that help us cope with viruses to this day, they conclude. Previous research had indicated that prehistoric interbreeding led to ...

Yet another panel of scientists has found no evidence that a popular vaccine causes autism. But despite the scientists’ best efforts, their report is unlikely to have any impact on the frustrating debate about the safety of these crucial medicines. “The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming ...

This negative stained transmission electron micrograph (TEM) shows recreated 1918 influenza virions that were collected from supernatants of 1918-infected Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells cultures 18 hours after infection. To separate these virions, the MDCK cells are spun down (centrifugation), and the 1918 virus in the fluid is immediately fixed for ...

Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola. Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at ...

Peppered as we are by government warnings about the potential health hazards of eating and drinking just about everything, it was refreshing (and perplexing) to see a widely respected food writer assert recently that “people are unnecessarily afraid of bacteria” in the kitchen. In April, Michael Ruhlman, author of “Ratio” ...

It’s an accepted concept by now that taking antibiotics in order to quell an infection disrupts the personal microbiome, the population of microorganisms that we all carry around in our guts, and which vastly outnumbers the cells that make up our bodies. That recognition supports our understanding of Clostridium difficile ...

Simple stained preparation of Bacillus species showing chains of rods and spores. (approx. X 970). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Australian scientists say they have discovered a cheap and effective method of preventing the transmission of dengue fever. They infected mosquitoes that spread the disease with bacteria that block transmission of the dengue virus. When the resistant insects were released, they successfully interbred with wild mosquitoes and halted their ability to transmit ...

A George Mason University researcher team has revealed the specific process by which the HIV virus infects healthy T cells -- a process previously unknown. The principal investigator, HIV researcher Yuntao Wu, says he hopes this breakthrough will start a new line on inquiry into how researchers can use this ...

Coriander oil is capable of killing many strains of bacteria in laboratory tests, researchers have found. Coriander, also called cilantro, is an aromatic plant used in cooking. For centuries, oil produced from the seeds has been tied to health benefits, including pain relief, ease of cramps, nausea fighter, aid for digestion ...

Simple stained preparation of Bacillus species showing rods and spores. (approx. X 970). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The incredible distances that microorganisms may be able to blow between continents has been investigated by researchers from the UK and Switzerland, raising questions about their potential to colonize new land and the possibility of spreading disease. The results were published this month in the Journal of Biogeography by scientists from ...

Lager beers got their start in Bavaria, but it was a little South American spice that really kicked things off. Scientists have known for decades that a hybrid species of yeast, Saccharomyces pastorianus, is the microbe that ferments lagers. It’s also well known that one parent of S. pastorianus is the ...

You might expect that science, particularly American science, would be colour-blind. Though fewer people from some of the country’s ethnic minorities are scientists than the proportions of those minorities in the population suggest should be the case, once someone has got bench space in a laboratory, he might reasonably expect ...

As evidenced by the E. coli outbreak in Europe earlier this year, which claimed dozens of lives and sickened thousands more, bacterial contamination of foods remains a significant problem. This outbreak clearly demonstrated that, despite recent improvements in technologies to detect and trace foodborne outbreaks, it will take continual advances ...

Consider the African rain dance. People in tribal costumes stamping the ground to make rain — it’s nonsense, you might say. Except that we now know it could actually work. If you have enough dancers, there may be no better way to make rain, because bugs in the soil and ...

A microbial bacterial fossil find is being hailed as proof that life existed in the oxygen-free environment of Earth, 3.4 billion years ago. The Strelley Pool Formation in Western Australia was once a beach, but is now more than 100 Km inland near(ish) the town of Marble Bar, and is popular ...

During the salmonella outbreak of 2008 and 2009 nine people died, 166 were hospitalized and more than 700 fell ill. Authorities ultimately traced the contamination of Salmonella Typhimurium back to a particular company producing peanut products. A study released today in the New England Journal of Medicine details that investigation, ...

Federal authorities are asking for samples of Virginia waterways in an attempt to develop a test for detecting deadly microscopic amoeba. Health officials say two children and a young man nationwide have died this summer from a fatal infection known as primary amoebic meningoencephalitis stemming from a brain-eating amoeba that lives ...

Danish researchers from the University of Copenhagen have become the first in the world to regulate a special receptor or bio-antenna that plays a vital part when the Epstein Barr herpes virus infects us and when this infection appears to be mutating into cancer of the immune system. Using a ...

The 2011-12 flu vaccine protects against seasonal flu and H1N1, just like last year's, but that doesn't mean it's OK to skip your yearly flu shot, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn. "All people aged 6 months and older should be vaccinated," said Dr. Carolyn Bridges, ...

Mosquitoes can quickly develop resistance to insecticide-treated nets, a study from Senegal shows, raising fears that a leading method of preventing the disease may be less effective than previously thought. Researchers who studied malaria infections in a village in the West African country found that growing resistance to a common type ...

Bacteria from fecal material -- in particular, dog fecal material -- may constitute the dominant source of airborne bacteria in Cleveland's and Detroit's wintertime air, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study. The CU-Boulder study showed that of the four Midwestern cities in the experiment, two cities had significant quantities ...

In the constant arms race between humans and harmful bacteria, researchers have homed in on how salmonella makes people sick. According to an update Thursday on the Centers for Disease Control's website, 111 people across 31 states have been sickened by an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella found in ground turkey. The key ...

Simple stain - two human cheek cells with surfaces covered by various shaped bacteria . (approx. X 100). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Few health issues strike a deeper chord of fear than that of cancer--your own body's tissues being hijacked, turning against you and taking over. An estimated 1,596,670 new cancer cases (not including some types of skin cancer, which are not reported to the same registries as other cancers) will be ...

A strange new menace has joined the long list of threats to corals, the tiny reef-building animals that create important habitat in our oceans. A bacterium that attacks humans is also killing off a species of coral in the Caribbean, elkhorn coral, according to researchers who proved the link by ...

Imagine a job that demands vigorous detective work seven days a week and most holidays but comes up empty three-quarters of the time. A job that’s infinitely engaging but deals with people who are desperate and in chronic pain. Most will not get better. This is the world inhabited by William ...

Swarm of paramecia surrounding an unidentified protozoan. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

A parasite known as the "brain-eating amoeba" has claimed its second young American victim this month. Christian Strickland, a 9-year-old from Henrico County in Virginia contracted an infection after visiting a fishing camp in his state. He died of meningitis on August 5. This week, health department officials confirmed that the deadly ...

Dr. Dan O'Sullivan, a microbiologist working at the University of Minnesota claims to have found the bacteria killing properties of bisin, while doing basic research on bacteria that live in the intestine. Chemically related to nisin, a preservative already used in cheese, bisin apparently kills E. coli, salmonella and listeria so ...

Simple stain- single human cheek cell with bacteria covering its surface (approx. X 100). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively in MicrobeWorld.

Conventional poultry farms use antibiotics extensively, which contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. But farms that turn to organic practices, including a ban on antibiotics, can greatly reduce antibiotic-resistant bacteria within only the first year of the change. That’s according to a new study in the journal Environmental Health ...

Israel's water industry is attracting funds from General Electric Co. and ConocoPhillips as the country develops energy-saving technology to treat sewage, part of a $5 billion program to clean up water supplies by 2016. Emefcy Ltd., building a fuel cell that uses bacteria to break down waste in water, has raised ...

Researchers have constructed a new synthetic bacterium that detects Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common microbe and a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections, and explodes, releasing antimicrobials that kill the invaders. The results, published today (August 16) in Molecular Systems Biology, suggest that the engineered bacteria might eventually be used to prevent ...

4 BILLION years before present: the surface of a newly formed planet around a medium-sized star is beginning to cool down. It's a violent place, bombarded by meteorites and riven by volcanic eruptions, with an atmosphere full of toxic gases. But almost as soon as water begins to form pools ...

Unstained, temporary wet mount showing size relationship between yeast cells (Saccharomyces) and bacterial rods (Bacillus subtilis). (approx. X 100). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will host a public workshop Sept. 16 about the development and evaluation of next-generation smallpox vaccines. It will take place at the Hilton Washington DC North/Gaithersburg in Gaithersburg, Md., ...

Yeast may be good for more than just baking. Researchers have found baker's yeast protects against deadly fungal infections, in a new study published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology. After injecting mice with the yeast, researchers found it prevents aspergillosis -- a leading fungal killer among people with weak immune systems ...

Deep-sea mussels use on-board bacterial "fuel cells" to harness energy from hydrogen spewing out of hydrothermal vents, according to research indicating that the use of this alternative fuel may be widespread in the communities at these vents. This is the first identified deep-sea organism to use hydrogen as fuel. Hydrothermal vents ...

Lots of organisms rely on symbiotic relationships, in which two species rely on each other for survival and one lives inside the other. But citrus mealybugs enjoy a triply symbiotic relationship unlike any we've ever seen...with one absolutely crucial exception. Microbiologist John McCutcheon of the University of Montana and biologist Carol ...

U.S. researchers have developed a new candidate vaccine to counter the chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen that produces an intensely painful and often chronic arthritic disease that has stricken millions of people in India, Southeast Asia and Africa. A single dose of the experimental vaccine protected lab mice from infection with ...

A rare but difficult-to-treat bacterial infection that usually strikes people with impaired immune systems is showing up for the first time in healthy individuals getting tattoos, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. Two cases of skin infections caused by this bacterium, called Mycobacterium haemophilum, have occurred in individuals ...

The majority of plant matter we have available to produce biofuels comes in the form of cellulose, a long polymer of sugars. It’s easiest to convert this material to ethanol, but that creates its own problems: Ethanol is less energy dense than petroleum-based fuels, and most vehicles on the road ...

A cholera epidemic is sweeping across Somalia, the United Nations said on Friday, as thousands of starving people flee famine zones and pack into crowded camps in the capital, Mogadishu. According to the United Nations World Health Organization, 181 people have died from suspected cholera cases in a single hospital ...

In a biotechnological tour de force, Rice University engineering researchers this week unveiled a new method for rapidly converting simple glucose into biofuels and petrochemical substitutes. In a paper published online in Nature, Rice's team described how it reversed one of the most efficient of all metabolic pathways -- the ...

Thin air is no problem for the hardy yeast. Researchers have found that the tiny, oxygen-dependent fungi can churn out some of their most basic building blocks using only trace amounts of the gas. The finding may hint at how organisms living billions of years ago eked out an existence ...

Microscopic view of a swarm of Euglena species. (approx. X 100). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Scientists have created spermless mosquitoes in an effort to curb the spread of malaria. Experts say that this is an important first step toward releasing sterile males into the wild to reduce the size of mosquito populations. Malaria kills around one million people worldwide every year, and in Africa alone, accounts for ...

A microscopic view of Spirogyra (eukaryote) and Oscillatoria (prokaryote). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Meet the world's oldest electrician. A bacterium called Geobacter sulfurreducens transmits electricity through filaments known as bacterial nanowires as efficiently as manmade nanostructures, and can be made to act as transistors, according to a new paper published online today in Nature Nanotechnology. The conductivity can also be "tuned" by regulating gene ...

The CDC's weekly FluView report highlights U.S. Virologic Surveillance for influenza.

The following summary of key influenza-related updates is based upon regional World Health Organization (WHO) reports, country reports, CDC field staff updates and other sources. Updates are listed by region. Reporting weeks may vary by country.

If you were the size of a bacterium, the lining of a stomach would seem like a rugged, hilly landscape filled with acid-spewing geysers, said Manuel Amieva, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology. Stomach-dwelling bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, the cause of ulcers and some gastric ...

No matter how many times the medical community reassures parents that vaccines are safe and necessary to prevent life-threatening diseases, some people remain unconvinced. "I believe that herd immunity is a complete myth," says J.B. Handley, co-founder of an autism advocacy organization called Generation Rescue that is critical of the way ...

European scientists say they have successfully tested in animals a vaccine for hepatitis C, a contagious and debilitating virus that can cause liver failure and cancer. Currently, there is no human vaccine for hepatitis C (HCV), which is spread through contaminated blood and kills some 350,000 people worldwide each year, according ...

The demise of the world's forests some 250 million years ago likely was accelerated by aggressive tree-killing fungi triggered by global climate change, according to a new study by a University of California, Berkeley, scientist and her Dutch and British colleagues. The researchers do not rule out the possibility that today's ...

ASM Press announces the availability of the newest edition of its authoritative reference for clinical laboratory professionals. The Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 10th edition, is available in both print and, for the first time, a digital edition. "The 10th edition of the Manual of Clinical Microbiology marks a significant milestone in ...

When the Deepwater Horizon accident spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last year, surface bacteria launched into a feeding frenzy, a new study finds. But microbes that gobbled up the surface oil did so without increasing their numbers or gaining weight. Waters in much of the ...

A Texas reservoir has turned a deep red, prompting a pastor to speculate it's a sign of the coming Apocalypse. But the Texas Department of Fish and Wildlife says it's just an indication of how bad the current drought is. About 99% of Texas is under drought conditions, according to the ...

A clear view of a Spirogyra filament showing the spiral chloroplast. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

The chart looked unusual to Mayo Health Systems lab technician Carol Werner, who had just run a routine test for bacterium at the Eau Claire laboratory. “There was an unexpected ‘peak,’” she said. “The peak was in an unusual spot – and it piqued my curiosity.” Werner’s observation back in 2009 led ...

Microscopic view of a large numbers of Spirogyra filaments. (approx 100X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively in MicrobeWorld.

Seventy-seven people have gotten sick and one has died in a salmonella outbreak that's appears to be caused by tainted ground turkey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. And the bacterial strain investigators are closing in on — Salmonella Heidelberg — is potentially quite bad because it's resistant to ...

As the kids at the Academy to Success wash their juice-stained hands, they sing. “Wash, wash, wash your hands, wash them every day,” goes the first verse. “Scrub the front and scrub the back.” Then the big finish. The 4-year-old germ-o-phobs shout: "Wash the germs away!" The U.S.A. is obsessed with killing bacteria ...

Microscopic view of the green algae Spirogyra filament and a number of primitive worms known as rotifers. (approx. 100X). Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

University of New South Wales researchers have shown that they can safely destroy hazardous industrial toxins in groundwater arising from PVC plastic production by injecting naturally occurring bacteria into a contaminated Sydney aquifer – an Australian first that raises hope of cleaning up this and similarly polluted sites around the ...

The first field trial for a “lab on a chip” accurately detected both HIV and syphilis among a Rwandan population, researchers reported Sunday. Blood samples injected into the clear plastic, credit card-shaped device produced results within 20 minutes. This kind of test could offer a faster, cheaper and easier way to ...

Avian influenza virus is a threat to the commercial chicken industry and, with its recent rapid spread across China, has also shown the ability for transmission from chickens to humans and other mammals. In an article in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann ...

FIFTEEN years before the doctor said to him: “Go home and get your affairs in order because there is nothing further we can do for you”, John was already aware that a problem existed. Blood had started showing up, infrequently and in small amounts in his stools. “I’d kept this information ...

he standard 14-day triple-drug regimen is more effective for treating Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection in Latin America than newer four-drug regimens, according to a study published online July 20 in The Lancet. E. Robert Greenberg, M.D., of the Southwest Oncology Group Statistical Center -- Cancer Research and Biostatistics in Seattle, ...

The number of multiresistant strains of bacteria in hospitals is increasing. Bacteria acquire resistance to antibiotics through mutations in their chromosomes and by incorporating new genes, either from the surrounding environment or from other bacteria. Now, a research team at the Portuguese CBA research (University of Lisbon) and the Instituto ...

Germany's federal disease control institute declared on Tuesday that an E. coli outbreak which killed more than 50 people is now over and no cases have been reported in the past three weeks. More than 4,400 people in Europe and North America were infected in two outbreaks of E. coli infection ...

Almost a quarter million people are hospitalized with the flu every year, and an estimated 3,000 to 49,000 die, making the flu one of the chief causes of preventable death in the USA. However, a universal flu vaccine that protects against all strains may be within reach in the next ...

You need bugs. Specifically, your body needs the friendly microbes that perform a number of symbiotic functions, without which you'd be dead. Having taken on the less off-putting epithet of "probiotics" -- versus "microbes," "friendly bacteria" or "beneficial micro-organisms" -- the critters under this modern sobriquet number in the scores ...

No matter how jaded you become, there is always room to be awed by the little shimmers of magic nature deals us on a regular basis. There's something just plain cool about a world that offers up coral shaped like organ pipes, peppermint shrimp, and monkeys feasting on fermented leaves. ...

Two Arizona State University research teams have partnered with NASA's Johnson Space Center to strengthen the realms of space microbiology. The combined team has launched a Recombinant Attenuated Salmonella Vaccine or RASV investigation to the International Space Station aboard the STS-135. The resultant samples of this spaceflight cultured RASV strain has ...

Rockweed algae on rocks in cold ocean water. From the Wistreich Collecction, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Scientists have found a flu "super antibody" called FI6 that can fight all types of influenza A viruses that cause disease in humans and animals and say their discovery may be a turning point in the development of new flu treatments. Researchers from Britain and Switzerland used a new method aimed ...

A rare condition that can cause paralysis has sickened two dozen people in a small area straddling the Arizona-Mexico border, authorities said on Tuesday, The Arizona Department of Health Services reported a cluster of 24 cases of the rare Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Yuma County in far western Arizona and neighboring San ...

A mixture of lichens. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

Hubris is always dangerous. In 1977 smallpox was eradicated and—an accidental infection in a British laboratory a year later aside—that claim has stood the test of time. Having eliminated one viral disease, the authorities decided they ought to be able to get rid of another: polio. That, though, proved a ...

A fruticose (leaflike) lichen. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld.

With NASA's space shuttle program officially at an end, the agency is making preparations to benefit the future of spaceflight, which includes ambitious plans for long-duration human missions to Mars or an asteroid. But to make these big missions happen, researchers are thinking small. So small, in fact, that they're focusing ...

Many women swear by cranberry juice or capsules for the treatment and prevention of urinary tract infections, but new Dutch research indicates that antibiotics may be more effective even if they contribute to a greater risk for antibiotic resistance. "Cranberries are less effective in the prevention, but do not result in ...

A researcher on Queensland's Sunshine Coast has developed a revolutionary new enzyme-based method of testing waterways for E.coli. Unitywater microbiologist Dr Tracey Wohlsen says the method will allow contaminated waterways to be treated more quickly than the usual 48 hours. Dr Wohlsen says the new test has halved the time it takes ...

Orange pigmented crustose lichens. From the Wistreich Collection.

Instead of the commuters typically packed into the bright blue and red "tap tap" pickup truck weaving through Haiti's capital, a man, shrunken, dehydrated, dressed in a diaper and attached to an IV, lay on the floor. As the ad-hoc ambulance in Port-au-Prince attested, cholera refuses to leave the country. The bacterial ...

(note - old news, but still interesting) Children with autism appear to have a characteristic chemical signature in their urine which might form the basis of an early diagnostic test for the condition. The finding also adds weight the hypothesis that substances released by gut bacteria are contributing to the onset of ...

Microbiologists have uncovered a sneaky trick by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa to oust rivals. It deploys a toxin delivery machine to breach cell walls of competitors without hurting itself. Its means of attack helps it survive in the outside environment and may even help it cause infection. P. aeruginosa is a ...

A teaspoon of seawater contains thousands of naturally occurring bacteria. Scientists previously believed that less than half of these ocean microbes are actively taking up organic compounds, while the remainder -- a mix of rare species -- lie dormant. Not so, according to researchers from the University of Delaware and the ...

Each community of soil microbes has a unique fingerprint that can potentially be used to track soil back to its source, right down to whether it came from dust from a rural road or from a farm field, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) soil scientist. Ann Kennedy, at ...

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered a way to block the damaging actions of chlamydia, the bacteria responsible for the largest number of sexually transmitted infections in the United States. The team, which included Duke University microbiologists and chemists, designed a molecule that takes away the bacteria's self-defense mechanisms. The ...

Proving that everything in Nevada is able to withstand stupefying levels of heat, a newly-discovered microbe from the state is not only able to survive temperatures above boiling, but is also one of the only microbes who can digest cellulose at high temperatures. Researchers discovered the hyperthermophilic microbes, called archaea, in ...

An algal bloom in a stream bordering land plants. From the Wistreich Collection

Space Shuttle Atlantis is set to take off Friday, July 8, as NASA’s 135th and final space shuttle mission, bringing a 30-year shuttle program to a close. Although the program is being retired, scientific experiments will continue in space aboard the International Space Station, which serves as a unique platform for ...

Infection control researchers investigating a rare bacterial outbreak of Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) identified contaminated nasal spray as the root cause of the infections, leading to a national recall of the product. An article in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for ...

A common bacterium fights off competitors by injecting them with toxic proteins a using needle-like puncturing device, scientists have found. This mechanism gives the bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an advantage in its environment and helps it in its quest to infect humans by eliminating other bacteria, including ones helpful for human health, ...

The appearance of an algal bloom in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. From the Wistreich Collection

Thermo Fisher Scientific is taking over Trek Diagnostic Systems from Magellan Biosciences. Trek provides microbiology solutions including blood culture, microorganism identification, and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) products. “The range of products manufactured by Trek ideally complements our existing portfolio of microbiological testing technologies,” remarks Marc N. Casper, president and CEO of ...

The presence of green algae colonizing the air space. From the Wistreich Collection.

Euglena species in Euglena broth media. From the Wistreich Collection

Each outpatient practice should identify an infection prevention leader, according to a new concise guide and checklist issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and reported online July 13. The new recommendations, which aim to protect patients by informing clinicians about minimal expectations of safe care, ...

Microscopic view of Euglena species (approx X 100)

The FDA has approved the influenza vaccine formulation for the 2011 to 2012 flu season. The vaccine protects against the three most common strains of the virus based on disease surveillance. The strains selected for the 2011-2012 influenza season are: A/California/7/09 (H1N1)-like virus A/Perth/16/2009 (H3N2)-like ...

A common bacterial infection that affects many females may increase their risk of transmitting HIV to their partners. A study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was presented at the International Aids Conference this week in Rome, Italy which examined the role of infection in women with HIV ...

A single Vorticella species. From the Wistreich collection.

In the days of rising oil prices and fears of dwindling supplies, it makes sense to get as much crude as possible out of any given well. After a well is drilled its natural pressure gradually subsides, eventually making it too costly to pump out the remaining crude. Although a well ...

A luxury resort on the Las Vegas strip has been linked to cases of the sometimes deadly Legionnaires' disease that has sickened a handful of guests since 2009, health officials and the hotel said on Friday. Elevated levels of the bacteria that causes the disease were found at the Aria Resort ...

A family tree of the 2009 pandemic influenza viruses in Japan reveals a high rate of viral evolution The influenza pandemic that began in Mexico in April 2009 rapidly spread throughout the world and arrived in Japan one month later. Now, a research team led by Toshihisa Ishikawa at the RIKEN ...

A new study affirms that the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine, developed to counter the flu pandemic, does not substantially put people at increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome. Guillain-Barré syndrome is a disorder in which a person's immune system damages nerves, causing weakness and in some cases paralysis. The study, conducted at ...

Scientists may be on track to develop a vaccine for the most common strain of meningitis, which has so far resisted an effective vaccine. Meningitis is a serious disease caused by an inflammation of the lining that protects the brain and spinal cord. Vaccines exist for most varieties of the bacteria ...

North Carolina State University researchers have found that a subset of fungus-farming ambrosia beetles may be in the early stages of a global epidemic threatening a number of economically important trees, including avocados, poplars and oaks. "Only about 12 species of ambrosia beetle are creating problems so far, but there are ...

MIT and Harvard researchers have developed technologies that could be used to rewrite the genetic code of a living cell, allowing them to make large-scale edits to the cell’s genome. Such technology could enable scientists to design cells that build proteins not found in nature, or engineer bacteria that are ...

So far, there have been two primary routes to reengineering an organism's genome. The first is to start with an existing form of life and tweak it a bit, eliminating a few genes and adding in some others. The second is to start from scratch, building a new genome up ...

Several paramecia showing internal structures. From the Wistreich Collection.

Swarm of paramecia surrounding an unidentified protozoan. From the Wistreich Collection.

Giving antiretroviral drugs to heterosexuals at high risk of HIV infection can significantly reduce the chance they will develop the AIDS-causing virus, two new studies suggest. "This is an extremely exciting finding for the field of HIV prevention," said Dr. Jared Baeten, co-chair of one study and a University of Washington ...

When an investigation proved early this year that research linking autism and vaccines was fraudulent, it seemed the debate over when or whether to immunize children might quiet down. But new voices have piped up in the vaccine controversy, and this time, they belong to pediatricians. While most parents do choose ...

Purdue University biologists identified a new way in which bacteria hijack healthy cells during infection, which could provide a target for new antibiotics. Zhao-Qing Luo, the associate professor of biological sciences who led the study, said the team discovered a new enzyme used by the bacterium Legionella pneumophila - which causes ...

US intelligence launched a fake vaccination drive in the Pakistan town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an effort to gather DNA from members of his family, the Guardian reported Tuesday. CIA officials recruited a senior local doctor to organise the campaign after it tracked down a bin ...

Tea and coffee may be linked to reducing antibiotic-resistant bacteria that healthy people carry in their noses. People who drank tea and coffee carried the bug, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, only half as often as those who didn't, said a study of 5000 people released yesterday in the Annals of Family Medicine. MRSA ...

Laboratory mice infected with the Lyme bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, exhibited an unusual immune response that may explain why Lyme disease recurs in some people, researchers at the University of California, Davis, said. In the study, published in PLoS Pathogens, Lyme disease was induced in mice by tick bites or injections. ...

Scientists have discovered a new strain of gonorrhea-causing bacteria in Japan that is resistant to available treatments. Since the 1940s, the sexually transmitted disease known as "the clap" has been easily treated with antibiotics. But the new strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae has genetically mutated to evade cephalosporins -- the only antibiotics ...

In order to realize the full potential of advanced biofuels that are derived from non-food sources of lignocellulosic biomass -- e.g., agricultural, forestry, and municipal waste, and crops such as poplar, switchgrass and miscanthus -- new technologies that can efficiently and cost-effectively break down this biomass into simple sugars are ...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today confirmed that the death of an Arizona resident who had traveled to Germany is linked to Europe's sprout-related Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreak. The CDC had previously said it was investigating if the fatality was related to the outbreak. In today's ...

A powerful new class of therapeutics, known as recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines (RASV), holds great potential in the fight against fatal diseases including hepatitis B, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid fever, AIDS and pneumonia. Now, Qingke Kong and his colleagues at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, have developed a technique to ...

A universal flu vaccine, capable of working against all strains, would save lives and money by eliminating the need for the annual jab. Researchers in California and the Netherlands believe they are now a "step closer" to meeting this objective. By putting the new antibody together with one they ...

The race to find the next weapons against disease continues. Researchers from Swiss science and technology university ETH Zurich are working with high-performance cloud computing company CloudBroker to develop new antibiotics to fight disease. The Institute of Molecular Systems Biology researchers used almost 250,000 computing hours on 1,000 parallel CPUs to conduct ...

I had to laugh out loud this morning as I watched three of my students searching for hyena scent marks. They were wandering about, bent over at the waist, sniffing the tips of tall grass stalks at the far edge of the territory of our largest study clan. They inched ...

The world has seen seven global cholera outbreaks since 1817, and the current one seems to have come to stay. Rising temperatures and a stubbornly persistent, toxic bacteria strain appear to have given the disease the upper hand. Public health officials are working on vaccines, struggling to improve sanitation in impoverished ...

Say a thank you to the pathogens and parasites of the world: Without them, there might be no such thing as sex. A new study finds that in organisms that can reproduce alone or with a partner, sexual reproduction is the result of a deadly arms race between host and pathogen. ...

"Scientists have long considered cyanobacteria to have 'multiple personalities,' as it were," said Andrzej Joachimiak, who directs the Structural Biology Center (SBC) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. "They are unique creatures in that they form key components of so many different ecological processes." Joachimiak and his colleagues ...

Each year, roughly 1 in 6 people in the United States gets sick from eating contaminated food. Each of those illnesses represents something that went wrong somewhere along the pathway from a farm to our table. Behind these illnesses are familiar culprits (like Salmonella) and causes (like poor food safety ...

When the Starship Enterprise went roaming through the galaxy, the captain and crew had to be vigilant. There might be Klingons, Romulans, disembodied intelligences composed of pure energy. What they never seemed to worry about was the threat of festering scum underneath the toilets or behind the sinks. But maybe ...

The U.S. Navy has enlisted some very tiny sailors to fuel their latest research vessel. Microorganisms are descending into the sea, enabling unmanned pods to gather data beneath the surface. Weeks later, (perhaps even years researchers say), the craft could emerge via power it had generated on board. No batteries ...

Good bacteria, also known as 'Probiotics' are known for their favorable effects in maintaining gastrointestinal health, but can they encourage psychological health too? New research conducted at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center has explored the new world of neurological probiotics and the scientists have put forward novel ideas ...

Back in spring 2009, the H1N1 influenza virus crossed the U.S. border and raised concerns that it might cause a full-scale epidemic in the fall. The Food and Drug Administration worked with other Health and Human Services agencies and vaccine manufacturers to quickly develop, license and distribute a vaccine to ...

Researchers are developing new technologies that combine a laser and electric fields to manipulate fluids and tiny particles such as bacteria, viruses and DNA for a range of potential applications, from drug manufacturing to food safety. The technologies could bring innovative sensors and analytical devices for "lab-on-a-chip" applications, or miniature instruments ...

A leading infectious disease expert has called on Google to expand its flu trends application to other viruses because of its success tracking the spread of the illness in Australia. Infectious Diseases and Australian National University microbiology professor Peter Collignon has asked Google to include norovirus, rotavirus and respiratory syncytial virus ...

In 2009, a 60-year-old American lab researcher was mysteriously, and fatally, infected with the black plague while conducting experiments using a weakened, non-virulent strain of the microbe. Now, a follow-up investigation has confirmed that the researcher died because of a genetic predisposition that made him vulnerable to the hazards of such ...

As Chile struggled for two months to rescue 33 miners trapped deep underground last year, it turned to an unlikely tool to help keep them healthy: copper socks. Chile has built its economy on the world's biggest deposits of copper, a metal known for versatility in a wide range of industrial ...

The investigation into the European E. coli crisis linked to sprouts has been closing in on Egyptian fenugreek seeds. But the name of a possible importer of those seeds mysteriously disappeared from an official report on the outbreak Wednesday -- 9 hours after it was published. The original document, released ...

Crudites eaten at a children’s center in the French city of Bordeaux are helping doctors in their two- month hunt for the source of the world’s deadliest E. coli outbreak. The bacterium that began sickening thousands of people in Germany in early May is the same as one that gave more ...

The swine flu shot appears to be safe for pregnant women, according to a new government report that tallies health problems occurring after the vaccinations. During the 2009-2010 flu season, millions of pregnant women received the vaccine against swine flu, or H1N1 influenza, yet but less than 300 possible complications were ...

Swabbing a newborn’s mouth for saliva is one way to quickly and effectively screen for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, a major cause of hearing loss in children. Researchers in a recent national study found that saliva enabled them to correctly identify every baby born with the infection when the saliva sample was ...

Study Summary: Intensive care units (ICU) are high-risk settings for the transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) infections.[1,2] The authors sought to determine whether surveillance for MRSA and VRE with expanded use of barrier precautions would reduce the incidence of MRSA or VRE colonization or infection in ...

Infection with the gastric bacterium Helicobacter pylori provides reliable protection against allergy-induced asthma, immunologists from the University of Zurich have demonstrated in an animal model together with allergy specialists from the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Their results published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation confirm ...

Many of America’s beaches are still contaminated by sewage water and are teeming with bacteria, but many sickened swimmers don’t realize they’ve caught a disease from the ocean. That’s the rather filthy picture of America’s coastal areas from the Natural Resources Defense Council in its annual report on the state ...

There’s a new paper out in the CDC’s journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that makes a provocative claim: There is enough similarity between drug-resistance genes in E. coli carried by chickens and E. coli infecting humans that the chickens may be the source of it. If it is correct — ...

Bacteria on raw poultry meat in the Netherlands may be a source of superbugs in people, according to a study that suggests the use of antibiotics in food animals is causing life-saving drugs to lose their potency. Multidrug-resistant bacteria were found in 80 percent of raw chicken bought from grocery stores ...

Red duct tape can save healthcare workers time and hospitals money by defining a "red box" just inside patient rooms in which healthcare workers can communicate with patients who are isolated with infections without stopping to don a gown and gloves. The approach extends the "safe zone" and reduces the ...

The bacteria behind food poisoning worldwide, the mighty e.coli, could be turned into a commercially available biofuel in five years, a U.S. scientist told technology industry and government leaders on Tuesday. Several companies are working on the technology, which has been proven in laboratories but is not yet yielding enough fuel ...

Marine shallow water sandy bottoms on the surface appear desert-like and empty, but in the interstitial space between the sand grains, a diverse fauna flourishes. In addition to bacteria and protozoa, numerous animal phyla have been found here - some found only here. One of the strangest members of this ...

In a study appearing online last night in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Pennsylvania State University and elsewhere describe how they used whole nuclear and mitochondrial genome sequencing and genotyping to characterize genetic diversity and population structure in Tasmanian devils — information that they hope ...

A mutated strain of bacteria is apparently behind an outbreak of scarlet fever in Hong Kong that has killed two children and sickened more than 600 people so far this year. Over the past decade, Hong Kong has typically recorded 100 to 200 cases annually with no deaths. Young adults, ...

The ability to identify self and non-self enables cells in more sophisticated animals to ward off invading infections, but it is critical to even simpler organisms such as the social amoebae Dictyostelium discoideum. Dictyostelium exists as a single cell when times are good, but when starved, the cells aggregate and become ...

The outbreak of E. coli affecting more than a dozen victims in Bordeaux, France is now almost conclusively linked to the ongoing epidemic of E. coli O104:H4 in Germany that has claimed the lives of 48 Europeans so far. Doctors say they are 99 percent sure that the French outbreak, ...

Use of rotavirus vaccine was associated with greatly reduced gastroenteritis hospitalizations in children, according to the results of a population-based surveillance study in 3 US counties from 2006 to 2009, reported online June 24 in Clinical Infectious Disease. "Rotavirus is the major cause of severe acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in children," write ...

The E. coli bacteria that killed dozens of people in Germany over the past month have a highly unusual combination of two traits and that may be what made the outbreak among the deadliest in recent history, scientists there are reporting. One trait was a toxin, called Shiga, that causes ...

Scientists have discovered the tool that bacteria normally found in our mouths use to invade heart tissue, causing a dangerous and sometimes lethal infection of the heart known as endocarditis. The work raises the possibility of creating a screening tool – perhaps a swab of the cheek, or a spit ...

If FerroKin BioSciences has a headquarters, it’s the attic of the farmhouse-style home of Dr. Hugh Young Rienhoff Jr., in San Carlos, California. Clearing papers off chairs, Rienhoff seems an unlikely pharma CEO. “Sorry,” he says, “I work in piles.” The attic is decorated with maps, medical-science posters, vacation pictures, ...

There will be some very interesting passengers on the final mission of the NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis scheduled to launch July 8, 2011: thousands of bacteria. Cynthia Collins, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer, is leading a series of experiments called Micro-2A that will be aboard the shuttle ...

The E. coli strain that infected thousands in Germany, killing more than three dozen, has now been scrutinized by researchers who say the bug might have been so deadly because it combines the powers of two other types of E.coli — enabling it both to stick fast to the inside ...

Scarlet fever—the much-feared scourge of the past—is back, with an outbreak in Hong Kong that has killed two children and sickened hundreds. More than 21,000 cases have also been reported in China so far this year, nearly quadruple the rate for the same period in 2010, while infections have tripled ...

Medical technology company Galaxy Diagnostics has been awarded a $188,000 federal grant for its research on a detection technology for the bacteria that causes Cat Scratch Disease. The SBIR grant comes from the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes for Health. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based ...

Pillows at home and in hospitals have been overlooked as breeding grounds for infectious germs -- including superbugs -- according to a UK study, cited by The (London) Times on Wednesday. The study revealed that after two years of use, more than than one third of a pillow's weight is made ...

"Imagine a nontransitive community in which, for convenience, we call the players Rock, Paper, and Scissors." It's a rather unusual line to find in a scientific paper, but the study it comes from is part of a special edition of PNAS on the evolution of social behavior. And rock-paper-scissors is ...

The boffins at Carnegie Mellon have done it again! This time they've devised a biological fuel cell that harvests the metabolic energy of bacteria using gold plates.

Heavy and prolonged snowfall can bring about unexpected conditions that encourage fungal growth, leading to the death of plants in the Arctic, according to experts. A new international study confirms that while snow has an insulating effect which helps plants to grow bigger, heavy and prolonged snow can, in certain circumstances, ...

For decades, livestock producers have given antibiotics to healthy farm animals to promote growth and compensate for unsanitary living conditions. But for the past 34 years, the Food and Drug Administration has known this practice creates drug-resistant bacteria that can pose a threat to human health, yet it has done ...

Global-health experts are often a glum lot, but a few billion dollars should be enough to perk anybody up. Over the past decade the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), founded with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has become the world’s main advocate of immunization. ...

Federal health officials, trying to determine whether to recommend that young children be vaccinated for the rare but often deadly bacterial meningitis, heard Wednesday from parents both for and against the vaccine. The public meeting in New Hampshire was the first of four the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is ...

Animal studies of a new human prostate cancer vaccine show that repeated intravenous injections can destroy well-established prostate tumors in mice, without adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation and with no apparent adverse effects. The proof-of-concept study by American and British researchers was published online June 19 in Nature Medicine. The authors write ...

Soil-dwelling bacteria of the genus Frankia have the potential to produce a multitude of natural products, including antibiotics, herbicides, pigments, anticancer agents, and other useful products, according to Bradley S. Moore of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, La Jolla, and his collaborators in an article in the June 2011 issue of ...

The bean sprouts contaminated with a particularly nasty strain of Escherichia coli, a bug that normally lives quietly in the gut of humans and other animals, have now sickened over 3,250 people in Germany and caused 37 deaths. Since the outbreak began in May, a quarter of those infected have ...

"I watched my friends get sick, just melt away, and die in hours." A senior, returning to our college from Nepal in 1968, after participating in a 5 year program allowing students a year abroad. His education included what we now would describe as post traumatic stress. Many readers will ...

On a lavender background, this illustration provides a 3D graphical representation of a generic influenza virion’s ultrastructure, and is not specific to a seasonal, avian or 2009 H1N1 virus. There are three types of influenza viruses: A, B and C. Human influenza A and B viruses cause seasonal epidemics of ...

The aggressive 0104:H4 E. coli bacteria strain has been found in a brook in Frankfurt, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported, citing an unidentified spokesman from the Hesse state Environment Ministry. The brook is not connected to the drinking water supply so there is no danger of contamination, DPA said.

In June 1981, I was a medical virologist developing the first antiviral medication to treat genital herpes. One morning over coffee, I picked up the Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and read about a new disease that was likely sexually transmitted, likely caused by an unknown ...

"Super bugs," which can cause wide-spread disease and may be resistant to most, if not all, conventional antibiotics, still have their weaknesses. A team of Canadian scientists discovered that specific mixtures of antimicrobial agents presented in lipid (fatty) mixtures can significantly boost the effectiveness of those agents to kill the ...

Health officials in Australia are reporting what may prove to be the first evidence that the vaccine targeting the human papillomavirus (HPV) could prevent cervical cancer in a large population. The incidence of lesions that lead to cervical cancer dropped dramatically among Australian teen girls after a nationwide, school-based HPV vaccination ...

For many doctors, reports by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing the largest increase in measles cases in almost 20 years is troubling but not surprising. "This is a tragedy," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Only six months into the calendar ...

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have uncovered how the body's immune system launches its survival response to the notorious and deadly bacterium anthrax. The findings, reported online today and published in the June 22 issue of ...

Romping through summer fields seems like a harmless pleasure for dogs, horses and humans alike. But just one bite from the wrong tick can rob an animal of that pastime. The bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi catch rides with certain species of ticks and can cause Lyme disease in animals the ticks ...

Speaking at the American Society for Microbiology annual meeting this month, Ohio State University's Michael Ibba said that one of the most anti-climactic moments of an academic career occurs "when the tenure clock stops ticking." Most academic faculty, he said, tend to think that "'If I just get tenure it's ...

In academia, as in national defense, Michael Ibba told American Society for Microbiology annual meeting attendees that "there are ... unknown unknowns" — that is, things "we don't know we don't know," he said, quoting the former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. During a special session on career preparation, ...

When interviewing at a major research institution, Ohio State University's Michael Ibba told attendees of the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting held in New Orleans, La., that faculty candidates will meet many people — all of whom have, to some an extent, a say in the final hiring decision ...

Ohio State University's Michael Ibba told attendees of the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting held in New Orleans, La., this week that, when applying to faculty positions at major research institutions, "you've got to realize ... it's a fairly random process." Because of the stochastic nature of faculty hiring ...

Professorships at major research institutions are high-risk careers with a matched potential for payoffs, according to Ohio State University's Michael Ibba. "In academic research, the more successful you are, actually the more control you'll have over your own career. And it's a challenge, but I think it's a big payoff ...

Sing it with us: What lives in the rainforest, under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii, a new species of mushroom almost as strange as its cartoon namesake. Its discovery in the forests of Borneo, says San Francisco State University researcher Dennis Desjardin, suggests that even some of the most charismatic characters in ...

If you're staying on top of the world of health products, you already know about probiotics. Different from antibiotics, probiotics are a natural way to help your body defend against outside predators. May sound a bit militaristic, but actually probiotics are about trumping bad bacteria with the good. If you've ...

Specific types of "helper" T cells that are crucial to maintaining functioning immune systems contain an enzyme called PDI (protein disulfide isomerase). This enzyme affects how proteins fold into specific shapes, which in turn influences how the T cells behave. PDI also plays a role in HIV infection by helping ...

In the developing world, drinking water contaminated with bacteria kills millions of people each year. Most methods to test drinking water for pathogens require expensive lab equipment and expert training, two resources many communities lack. To offer a cheap, simple alternative, researchers now demonstrate a test strip that changes color ...

When scientists discovered a new bacterium that can live on caffeine last month, it sparked many tongue-in-cheek headlines and ledes. "Bacteria survives on caffeine (like me)." "If you can’t live without a cup of coffee…" "Think you live on caffeine?" But after everyone had a good laugh about the extent ...

A Texas university is receiving $4.6 million from the U.S. Army to support microbiology research on infectious organisms threatening the military. The 5-year funding, from the Defense's Army Research Office, will be used by the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at The University of Texas at San Antonio to ...

Those who believe in free will might be troubled to learn a few secrets about viruses, bacteria and parasites. While it may sound like science fiction, science hints at the potential for microbes to influence our minds, or at least our behavior. Granted, with very limited exceptions, there’s no conclusive proof ...

Today, our most fearsome natural enemies aren't big, fierce animals. They're microscopic invaders, with names like O104:H4. Their weapon is evolution. O104:H4 is the label given to the strain of E. coli responsible for the food-borne outbreak currently sweeping through Europe. The organism is so good at infecting us that a ...

An 8-year-old girl who contracted rabies — likely from a feral cat — is a rare survivor of the infection without having received the life-saving vaccine, hospital officials said Sunday. Precious Reynolds of Willow Creek, Calif., was treated by pediatricians at the University of California Davis Children's Hospital in coordination with ...

The enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) outbreak in Germany has been the most serious ever recorded in the WHO European Region. Thirty-five people have died, and hundreds are still ill: this is the outbreak’s sad toll on human health so far. The economic impact of this outbreak is still emerging. It ...

With a little help from a fluorescent protein, mammalian cells have been transformed into living lasers. This discovery could help improve imaging of living cells, enabling researchers to explore what's going on inside. Laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, where amplification is usually achieved using dyes or ...

The deaths of 31 people in Europe from a little-known strain of E. coli have raised alarms worldwide, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Our food often betrays us. Just a few days ago, a 2-year-old girl in Dryden, Va., died in a hospital after suffering bloody diarrhea linked to another strain ...

Antibiotics aren’t a recommended treatment for asthma, yet doctors are prescribing them to roughly one in six children with asthma who shouldn’t be getting them, according to new research. That amounts to nearly 1 million prescriptions for antibiotics each year that aren’t in accordance with national treatment guidelines, according to a ...

European officials have finally identified bean sprouts as the likely culprit in a deadly outbreak of E. coli poisoning, the latest in a series of outbreaks traced back to tainted sprouts. This year, at least two American growers have recalled sprouts contaminated with salmonella, and outbreaks of illness from tainted ...

Scientists now have a clearer picture of the viruses, bacteria, and parasites that accompany honey bees as they perform essential pollination services for myriad commercial crops throughout North America and Europe. This week, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, published in PLoS ONE a comprehensive, long-term genomic study ...

As a young infectious disease researcher in 1971, Dr. Sherwood L. Gorbach received an urgent call for help from a drug company. Some patients treated with the company’s antibiotic in New Zealand had developed severe cases of diarrhea and bowel inflammation, and some had died. Dr. Gorbach ended up devoting ...

Although nearly all American children get the recommended vaccinations to prevent serious diseases, many parents express concerns about the shots, and a small number refuse to have their kids inoculated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 95 percent of parents said their kids had received all ...

Just a few genes make enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) extremely dangerous to humans. If it were not for these genes, EHEC would hardly differ from harmless enteric bacteria. Bioinformatics scientists from the Saarbrücken Cluster of Excellence want to exploit this similarity to find starting points for effective drugs against the ...

Health authorities in Germany have finally been able to show that the pathogens which caused the deadly EHEC outbreak came from sprouts at an organic farm in the Uelzen district. According to SPIEGEL ONLINE information, the breakthrough was made by scientists in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Final verification, however, ...

Health officials in Ohio said on Thursday that eight people had been sickened in the state as a result of a growing salmonella outbreak that federal officials say has now spread to 15 states. The Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of agriculture said the outbreak appeared to be ...

Flu vaccination rates remained high during the 2010-2011 flu season, according to data in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The 2010-2011 flu season marked the first time that the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended flu shots for everyone aged 6 months or older. It was also the ...

Mysterious brown spots covering the surfaces of King Tut's tomb have long puzzled scientists trying to identify them. Now a new study reveals ancient Egyptian microbes left these blemishes. The spots offer insight not only into the boy king's death, but also into the haste of his burial, according to researcher ...

Dutch authorities recalled red beet sprouts from three countries Thursday after samples were found to be contaminated with a strain of E. coli bacteria that was apparently less dangerous than the one causing Europe's deadly E. coli crisis. The Dutch Food Safety Authority said laboratories were still trying to identify the ...

After first sending Spain's agricultural industry into a tailspin by falsely accusing that country's cucumbers, German authorities on June 5 pointed a finger of blame at local beansprouts — specifically the produce of an organic farm in the village of Bienenbüttel, around 70 kilometers south of Hamburg — as the ...

A potential life-saving treatment for severe E. coli food poisoning outbreaks -- developed more than a decade ago -- hasn't gone forward into clinical trials because of lack of commercial interest, Australian researchers say. University of Adelaide researchers produced a "designer" probiotic bacterium which binds and neutralises the toxin produced by ...

On June 5th 1981 America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported the outbreak of an unusual form of pneumonia in Los Angeles. When, a few weeks later, its scientists noticed a similar cluster of a rare cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma in San Francisco, they suspected that something strange and ...

Salmonella infections have not decreased during the past 15 years and have instead increased by 10 percent in recent years, according to a new Vital Signs report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the same time period, illnesses from the serious Shiga toxin-producing E. coli ...

Researchers at the Institute of Heritage Restoration (IRP) and the Centre for Advanced Food Microbiology (CAMA), both from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), are beginning to experiment with this new technique on the frescoes of Antonio Palomino from the 17th century in the Church of Santos Juanes in Valencia. They ...

Germany said on Tuesday the rate of infection from a deadly new strain of E.coli that has killed 23 people was slowing down. The outbreak in northern Germany has crippled exports as scientists seemed to be no nearer to proving if the outbreak originated in organic bean sprouts. Here are some ...

Hopes of drawing a line under the E. coli outbreak in Europe fell Tuesday as scientists said they had yet to trace the source of the bacteria that has killed at least 22 people mainly in Germany and infected more than 2,200 people in at least 12 countries. The admission came ...

Hepatitis C is, in some ways, a high-profile disease. Worldwide, an estimated 200 million people are infected with the virus. Some of them will suffer cirrhosis, liver cancer and even death. Celebrities like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and “American Idol” have spoken publicly of their infections. But mysteries still shroud ...

When Philip Tarr heard the first reports of a massive outbreak of E. coli in Europe recently, they had a sickeningly familiar ring. Tarr, a microbiologist at Washington University, is an expert on the strains of E. coli that have periodically wreaked havoc in the United States. In 2006, for ...

Since HIV was discovered 30 years ago this week, 30 million people have died from the disease, and it continues to spread at the rate of 7,000 people per day globally, the UN says. There's not much good news when it comes to this devastating virus. But that is perhaps why ...

Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays of both liquid- and dried-saliva specimens are highly sensitive and specific for detecting cytomegalovirus (CMV) and should be considered for newborn screening, according to the results of a prospective, multicenter screening study reported in the June 2 issue of the New England Journal of ...

Advanced biofuels -- liquid transportation fuels derived from the cellulosic biomass of perennial grasses and other non-food plants, as well as from agricultural waste -- are highly touted as potential replacements for gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Equally touted is the synthesis of these fuels through the use of microbes. ...