Fungal

Image: Tor Nightfire/Macmillan/MCDThere’s something about mushrooms and fungi that’s inherently creepy. They can grow just about anywhere, feed on anything, and wiggle their weird little mycelia into the cracks, corners, and crannies of any house, home, or body. It makes for very good horror. I’m excited to show you.So, for some of these book the presence of fungi might not be apparently obvious (some of these entries could border on spoiler territory), but I need you to trust me that all of these books slide neatly into…

The more infectious form of the yeast Candida albicans is a long filament (shown on the left). MIT researchers have demonstrated that when the yeast is grown in the presence of mucin glycans, it remains in its round, harmless form (shown on the right). Credit: Julie Takagi. Colorized by MIT NewsHarnessing the strength of specialized sugar molecules found in mucus could help researchers develop new antifungal drugs.Candida albicans is a yeast that often lives in the human digestive tract and mouth, as well as urinary and…

Hospital patients that are prescribed antibiotics are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut. Immune-boosting drugs could reduce the health risks from complex infections.Patients prescribed antibiotics in the hospital are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut.Using immune-boosting drugs alongside the antibiotics could reduce the health risks from these complex infections, according to a new study from the <span…