A genetically weaponized fungus is getting used against malaria.
PhysOrg has a report on a genetically modified fungus that is capable, if released into the wild, of using spider venom to eliminate the mosquitoes […]
epidemiology
U.S. measles outbreak keeps breaking….
Science News tracks the new outbreak of a disease we’d formally “eliminated”: The viral disease has sickened at least 555 people in 20 states, according […]
SONG: Let Them In (Voluntary Schistosomiasis)
SONG: “Let Them In (Voluntary Schistosomiasis)”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Science, 21 Feb 2018, “Seventeen volunteers let this worm live inside them to help defeat a […]
So these folks infect themselves with this parasitic worm to figure out how to cure this disease….
Science revisits one of my childhood nightmares (one of many blessings from frequent family visits to South Africa) with news of researchers infecting volunteers with […]
Riots spread like viruses spread like “fake news.”
The American Council on Health and Social Science looks at the epidemiology of human behavior – and things we want to believe – by finding […]
Light pollution helps West Nile virus spread. (Go figure.)
Science Daily makes a fact-based plea to keep sparrows in the dark – because nighttime lighting makes the birds stay sick with West Nile – […]
500-year-old teeth reveal an unimaginably deadly epidemic.
Popular Science checks the dental records to get to the cause of a mysterious sickness that killed up to 15 million people in only three […]
Bacteria could rid the South Pacific of mosquitoes within a decade.
Nature has more on a Tahitian lab’s plan to use Wolbachia bacteria to wipe out mosquitoes: The mosquito problem could be solved in the Society […]
Recreating deadly diseases with mail-order DNA: Here’s how.
Science reports on a group of researchers who recreated an extinct cousin of smallpox – one of the deadliest and most-weaponized diseases on Earth – […]
Melting permafrost is releasing ancient diseases.
Sounds almost medieval, doesn’t it? But no, it’s not the vapors. BBC shows how dormant viruses and bacteria are waking up after centuries or even […]
GMO mosquitoes will fly. Probably.
Just a short note (from a Fusion story), but one kind of overlooked story from election day is that the Florida Keys approved releasing genetically […]
Florida Keys voting on genetically-modified mosquito plan.
FiveThirtyEight Science has an in-depth article on a genetic reponse to the Zika threat and the scientific stakes of ballots cast in Florida’s southernmost county: […]
Zika is an American disease now.
NPR reports that the mosquito-borne illness is probably here to stay: So far, local officials in Miami have successfully cleared just one zone of local […]
A new way to catch Zika.
The Washington Post puzzles over a case of Zika in Utah that points to a new way for the virus to transmit itself: Until now, […]
Scientists track elusive badger-cow encounters.
Nature goes out to the country to track the spread of TB (an unpleasant and expensive disease) by looking at how badgers meet cows… or […]