Microbes
- Health & Medicine
A medical mystery reveals a new host for the rat lungworm parasite
Doctors report that A. cantonensis was transmitted to two people who ate raw centipedes, but you can get it from other creatures as well.
- Microbes
How a slime mold near death packs bacteria to feed the next generation
Social amoebas that farm bacteria for food use proteins to preserve the crop for their offspring.
- Health & Medicine
Finally, there’s a way to keep syphilis growing in the lab
Scientists have figured out how to keep a sample of the bacteria Treponema pallidum alive and infectious for over eight months.
-
- Health & Medicine
‘Outbreak’ puts the life cycle of an epidemic on display
At the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the exhibit “Outbreak” highlights how infectious diseases shape our world.
- Animals
With a little convincing, rats can detect tuberculosis
TB-sniffing rats prove more accurate in detecting infection, especially in children, than the most commonly used diagnostic tool.
- Microbes
This plastic-gobbling enzyme just got an upgrade
Scientists tweaked a bacterial enzyme and made it more efficient in breaking down plastics found in polyester and plastic bottles.
- Materials Science
A new plastic film glows to flag food contaminated with dangerous microbes
Plastic patches that glow when they touch some types of bacteria could be built into food packaging to reduce the spread of foodborne illness.
- Microbes
This material uses energy from ambient light to kill hospital superbugs
A quantum dot–powered material could help reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections, including those with drug-resistant bacteria.
- Microbes
A new way to make bacteria glow could simplify TB screening
A new dye to stain tuberculosis bacteria in coughed-up mucus and saliva could expedite TB diagnoses and drug-resistance tests.
- Genetics
Genes could record forensic clues to time of death
Scientists have found predictable patterns in the way our genetic machinery winds down after death.
- Animals
Here’s why so many saiga antelope mysteriously died in 2015
Higher than normal temperatures turned normally benign bacteria lethal, killing hundreds of thousands of the saiga antelopes.
