6,260 results
6,260 results for: Virus
- Health & Medicine
DNA is providing new clues to why COVID-19 hits people differently
Age, general health and vaccinations can affect how sick people get with COVID-19. So can genes. Here are new hints of what’s going on in our DNA.
- Microbes
Are viruses alive, not alive or something in between? And why does it matter?
The way we talk about viruses can shift scientific research and our understanding of evolution.
- Health & Medicine
How omicron’s mutations make it the most infectious coronavirus variant yet
With its mishmash of mutations, omicron has a unique anatomy that has helped fuel its dominance.
- Microbes
A bacteria-virus arms race could lead to a new way to treat shigellosis
As bacteria that cause shigellosis evolve to escape a virus, the microbes may become less deadly, a hopeful sign for “phage therapy.”
- Health & Medicine
Why the coronavirus’s delta variant dominated 2021
Mapping delta’s unique group of mutations and how they enhance the virus’s life cycle show why the variant spread so easily and caused so much havoc.
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Long COVID brings another huge challenge to science
Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses the challenges of long COVID and what it takes to report on it.
- Health & Medicine
Smruthi Karthikeyan turned to wastewater to get ahead of COVID-19
Smruthi Karthikeyan’s system for tracking the coronavirus gives lifesaving public health measures a head start.
- Health & Medicine
The body’s response to allergic asthma also helps protect against COVID-19
A protein called IL-13 mounts defenses that include virus-trapping mucus and armor that shields airway cells from infection.
- Health & Medicine
The COVID-19 pandemic is not an on-off switch
The pandemic is more of a dimmer switch, and it will be a slow slide to the endemic phase, says epidemiologist Aubree Gordon.
- Health & Medicine
How I decided on a second COVID-19 booster shot
Boosters help for a short time, and mixing vaccines doesn’t seem to push the immune system toward making unhelpful antibodies, studies show.
- Life
Some E. coli set off viral grenades inside nearby bacteria
A bacterial toxin called colibactin awakens dormant viruses embedded in bacterial DNA, but its ecological role is still unknown.
- Health & Medicine
What we know and don’t know about the omicron coronavirus variant
The new omicron variant has lots of mutations and sparked a surge of cases in South Africa, but researchers still don’t know a lot about it.
