Scientific American

Hard to Beat Feet for Fostering Fungus

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:30:08 EST

Do fungi have a foot fetish? When researchers mapped the fungal species living on the surface of the human body, they found the skin on the feet harbors the most diverse fungal community. The work is in the journal Nature . [Keisha Findley et al, Topographic diversity of fungal and bacterial communities in human skin ]

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Shooting the Wheeze: Whooping Cough Vaccine Falls Short of Previous Shot s Protection

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:30:00 EST

Protection against the disease pertussis, or whooping cough , doesn’t appear to be as strong with the currently administered vaccine when compared with the older version administered up until the 1990s, according to a new study in Pediatrics . During a pertussis outbreak in 2010–11 in California teens who had received four doses of the current vaccine were at almost six times more likely to get pertussis as those who had received four doses of the older preparation.

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Good Gut Bacteria May Keep Bad at Bay

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:59:08 EST

Most E. coli bacteria are harmless. It’s the rare, pathogenic strains that can cause bloody diarrhea, kidney disease, or death. But many of us may already be carrying the antidote--a healthy colony of gut bacteria. Because a study finds that when bad E. coli get in, beneficial microbes appear to keep them at bay. In mice, at least.

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Why You Should Worry about a Case of Polio in Somalia

Thu, 16 May 2013 06:30:00 EST

From Afghanistan to Somalia, the struggle to eradicate polio continues to lurch along in fits and starts. The past few days have brought a modicum of good news and some potentially quite bad news.

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Produce Industry s Food Safety Push Takes Toll on the Environment

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:41:00 EST

Clean greens are healthy greens.

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Valley Fever Throws Baseball a Curve

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:30:00 EST

Conor Jackson had a big bat and a bright future. But after he contracted a rare illness in 2009 while playing with the Arizona Diamondbacks he was never quite the same.

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Cheap Nanotech Filter Clears Hazardous Microbes and Chemicals from Drinking Water

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:30:00 EST

About 780 million people--a tenth of the world’s population--do not have access to clean drinking water. Water laced with contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, lead and arsenic claims millions of lives each year. But an inexpensive device that effectively clears such contaminants from water may help solve this problem.

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Liver Hormone Offers Hope for Diabetes Treatment

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 08:00:00 EST

Biologists have found a hormone in the liver that spurs the growth of insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas, a discovery they hope will lead to new treatments for diabetes.

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Will the H7N9 Avian Flu Spread to People Outside Mainland China?

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:00:00 EST

Scientists do not yet fully understand how the H7N9 avian influenza virus is spreading in China, or why the pattern of sporadic human cases looks like it does. But mapping the risks of known factors in the past geographical spread of avian flu viruses and human infections might provide some clues.

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Epidemiological Endgame: Is Polio on the Brink of Eradication?

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:15:00 EST

Despite the pointless political assassinations of vaccine workers or the police officers who guard them in a few deeply troubled areas, enough progress has been made against polio in the past year that health experts are now planning for the grand finale--its complete eradication by 2018. The official to-do list of what needs to be done and when to obliterate the crippling childhood disease--which goes by the name Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013–2018 ( pdf )--will be formally presented at an international health meeting in Abu Dhabi on April 25.

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From Baghdad to Boston: War Lessons on Amputations Help Blast Victims Walk Again

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:35:00 EST

Medical professionals treating the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings have one advantage over first responders at the Oklahoma City bombing: the accumulated knowledge of treating blast injuries gained over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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FDA Promises to Flex Regulatory Muscle to Oversee Compounding Pharmacies, but May Need Help

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:34:00 EST

Black particles floating in vials of supposedly sterile medicine; poor air filtration systems; insufficient microbiological testing: These are just some of the issues federal drug inspectors discovered in recent inspections of compounding pharmacies like the one linked to a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak this fall.

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Ill-Advised: Researchers Agree Puzzling New Bird Flu Should Be Taken Seriously

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:15:00 EST

An influenza A virus called H7N9 exploded onto the global infectious-diseases radar on April 1 when the World Health Organization revealed China had found three people infected with a new form of bird flu. Since then 77 cases (as of 1 P.M. EDT, April 16) have been confirmed, and the virus has spread from China’s largest megalopolis, Shanghai, and several surrounding provinces to the capital, Beijing, more than 950 kilometers to the north. And cases have proliferated at a startling pace: Infections with H7N9 have already outstripped the total number of H5N1 bird flu cases seen in all affected countries last year.

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Mary Roach Cruises the Alimentary Canal

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:05:08 EST

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Source of Novel Avian Flu Outbreak Urgently Sought

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:50:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Hospitals Fail to Take Simple Measures to Thwart Deadly Infections, Survey Says

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:00:00 EST

Few people check into a hospital expecting to come down with a severe case of diarrhea while undergoing care for an entirely unrelated problem. And even fewer expect to die of the hospital-acquired intestinal infection that causes the watery stools. Yet for approximately 14,000 Americans each year, that is exactly what happens. The culprit is a strain of a spore-forming bacterium known as Clostridium difficile, or C. diff --in particular, a relatively recent strain that has grown more virulent and resistant to drugs.

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Imagine All the People Turning Blue and Green

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:07:08 EST

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Drier Climate May Spread Diarrhea

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:30:00 EST

LONDON – Diarrhea, killer of 1.5 million children annually, is likely to become more prevalent in many developing countries as the climate changes, a report says. But the authors found an unexpected twist in the way the climate is likely to affect the disease.

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Is Cancer Contagious? Could Hugo Chávez Have Been Deliberately Infected?

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:30:00 EST

Venezuelan officials announced this week that they would investigate whether enemies could have deliberately infected late President Hugo Chávez with cancer. Chávez died on March 5, apparently of a heart attack , after battling cancer for two years.

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Yes, a Child Has Been Pronounced Cured of HIV but Can It Be Duplicated?

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:45:00 EST

A child born to an HIV-infected mother in Mississippi may be cured after a swiftly administered course of drugs. A number of factors make the child’s case unique, however, and clinicians caution that we have not discovered a general cure for HIV yet. Still, the medical first may hint at ways to fight the AIDS-causing virus .

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