Scientific American

Garlic Compound Fights Food-Borne Bacteria

Tue, 01 May 2012 21:24:08 EST

It’s more bad news for vampires, but good news for the fight against food-borne illness: a compound in garlic is extremely effective at fighting Campylobacter , bacteria that frequently cause intestinal infections. The work is in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy . [Xiaonan Lu et al., " Antimicrobial effect of diallyl sulphide on Campylobacter jejuni biofilms "]

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Big Mac Attack: Apple Security Bruised after OS X Infections

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:15:00 EST

Apple has long enjoyed the reputation of making a computing platform that provides security protection that is superior to its peers--in a word, Microsoft. The emergence of a group of malicious software (malware) programs in recent months-- collectively known as Flashback or Flashfake --that specifically target Macs and their OS X operating system now has Apple in the unfamiliar position of being on the defensive. [More]

Hot Spring Yields New Hybrid Viral Genome

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:20:00 EST

In the hostile environment of a bubbling volcanic hot spring, a team of researchers at Portland State University in Oregon has discovered a new viral genome that seems to be the product of recombination between a DNA virus and an RNA virus -- a natural chimaera not seen before. Their findings appeared on 19 April in the journal Biology Direct .

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Revealed: How Cold War Scientists Joined Forces to Conquer Polio (preview)

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EST

To many Americans, the cold war is ancient history. Yet only a few decades ago the planet was dangerously divided between West and East, and the antagonism between the U.S. and the Soviet Union defined global politics. Flare-ups such as the Korean “police action,” which killed millions of people in the early 1950s, and the Cuban missile crisis, 10 years later, drew the American and Soviet governments and their proxies to the threshold of nuclear war.

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Energy Secretary Steven Chu Discusses the "Weird Little Bacteria" in Our Energy Future

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 EST

Name: Steven Chu [More]

Bugs That Transmit "Silent Killer" Are Biting More in the U.S.

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EST

Transmitted by bloodsucking kissing bugs, tropical Chagas disease--which afflicts millions in Central and South America--may affect more people in the U.S. than previously thought. Although doctors officially have recorded only seven cases of new human infections in North America, a new study found that five of 13 kissing bugs collected from California and Arizona had bitten a human host--and many of the bugs they collected were infected with Chagas.

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Drug-Resistant Malaria Spreads, Scientists Hunt Down Genetic Causes

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:20:00 EST

The malaria parasite is a wily organism, shifting its life stages as it flits from human to mosquito and back again. It still kills some 600,000 people each year and has outwitted eradication efforts, having developed resistance to previously popular drugs and, thus far, eluded vaccine-induced immunity.

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Infectious Selflessness: How an Ant Colony Becomes a Social Immune System

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:00:00 EST

In the 2011 blockbuster thriller Contagion , a virus infects and kills 26 million people around the world. But even those who evade the virus are infected with something else: crippling fear . To contain the outbreak, the military imposes a quarantine. People stay indoors, refusing to interact with anyone outside their families. Touching anyone or anything becomes a risk, because the virus lingers everywhere. [More]

Dengue Virus Makes Mosquitoes Better Spreaders

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:41:08 EST

The dengue virus depends on mosquitoes to get around. But the virus may have evolved a way to speed its spread--by manipulating the behavior of its mosquito hosts. It makes them more bloodthirsty, and quicker to find a blood meal, than their uninfected counterparts. So says a study in the journal Public Library of Science Pathogens . [Shuzhen Sim, Jose L. Ramirez and George Dimopoulos, " Dengue Virus Infection of the Aedes aegypti Salivary Gland and Chemosensory Apparatus Induces Genes that Modulate Infection and Blood-Feeding Behavior "]

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Microbial Mules: Engineering Bacteria to Transport Nanoparticles and Drugs

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:00 EST

Tiny robots that swim through our blood vessels attacking viruses and malignant cells have not quite crossed the line that separates science fiction from science--but there might be a way to jump-start their development. [More]

Food Poisoning's Hidden Legacy

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:00:00 EST

Colette Dziadul struggled for years to understand her daughter’s joint problems. Dana, who is now 14 years old, complained from toddlerhood that her knees and ankles hurt. The aches kept her up at night, made her wake her parents to ask for painkillers and forced her to sit out school sports. Nevertheless, two pediatricians and an orthopedist diagnosed the problem as “growing pains” that would fade as she grew older.

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Thyme Kills Acne Bacteria

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:25:08 EST

Compounds found in the herb thyme have antibiotic properties. Now scientists have demonstrated that thyme might have a future role in fighting acne.

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Blocking HIV's Attack (preview)

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:00:00 EST

A little more than three years ago a medical team from Berlin published the results of a unique experiment that astonished HIV researchers. The German group had taken bone marrow--the source of the body’s immune cells--from an anonymous donor whose genetic inheritance made him or her naturally resistant to HIV. Then the researchers transplanted the cells into a man with leukemia who had been HIV-positive for more than 10 years. Although treatment of the patient’s leukemia was the rationale for the bone marrow transplant therapy, the group also hoped that the transplant would provide enough HIV-resistant cells to control the man’s infection. The therapy exceeded the team’s expectations. Instead of just decreasing the amount of HIV in the patient’s blood, the transplant wiped out all detectable traces of the virus from his body, including in multiple tissues where it could have lain dormant. The German researchers were so surprised by the spectacularly positive results that they waited nearly two years before publishing their data.

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Bats Harbor Novel Type of Influenza

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:40:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Dread Reckoning: H5N1 Bird Flu May Be Less Deadly to Humans Than Previously Thought--or Not

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

A simple math problem lies at the heart of a heated debate over whether scientists should be allowed to publish provocative research into the transmissibility of H5N1 flu . Assuming the avian virus could spread easily among people, just how deadly would an H5N1 pandemic be for humans?

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Could an Infection Cause Tourette's-Like Symptoms in Teenage Girls?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:05:00 EST

Over the weekend Erin Brockovich made the news yet again as she and her nonprofit team descended on the village of Le Roy, N.Y., determined to test for environmental toxins that might be giving the town's teenagers symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. She has reportedly been stonewalled thus far by local officials, who have already ruled out toxins as the cause of last October's sudden outbreak of tics and involuntary movements in 12 girls who attend Le Roy Junior–Senior High School. An environmental testing company surveyed the air and water and found nothing amiss, and a local neurologist concluded upon examining the girls that they had "conversion disorder," a catchall moniker for physical symptoms that originate in the mind because of stress, trauma or even mass hysteria.

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Diabetes Mystery: Why Are Type 1 Cases Surging?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

When public health officials fret about the soaring incidence of diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide, they are generally referring to type 2 diabetes. About 90 percent of the nearly 350 million people around the world who have diabetes suffer from the type 2 form of the illness, which mostly starts causing problems in the 40s and 50s and is tied to the stress that extra pounds place on the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose. About 25 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, and another million have type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in childhood and can be controlled only with daily doses of insulin.

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How Scientists Are Tackling the Bed Bug Nightmare (preview)

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

The elderly man lived by himself in a low-income apartment near Cincinnati. But he was not alone. After dark the bed bugs would emerge from his recliner and tattered box-spring mattress to feed on his blood. Judging from the thousands of insects I found in his home, I would venture that it had been this way for many months. Imprisoned by poverty and infirmity, the man had nourished generations of these pests, enduring their bites night after night while their numbers swelled.

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When Viruses Invade the Brain

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EST

Neurodegenerative diseases were once considered disorders of the mind, rooted in psychology. Now viruses rank among the environmental factors thought to trigger brain-ravaging diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s disease. Human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6), in particular, has been linked to MS in past studies. Neuroscientist Steven Jacobson and his colleagues at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have determined that the virus makes its entry to the human brain through the olfactory pathway, right along with the odors wafting into our nose.

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Contagion: Controversy Erupts over Man-Made Pandemic Avian Flu Virus

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:45:00 EST

It’s a rare kind of research that incites a frenzied panic before it’s even published. But it’s flu season, and influenza science has a way of causing a stir this time of year.

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