infectious

A study published in the…

From a horror movie plot to real life: Scientists have revived ancient 'zombie' viruses from permafrost and discovered they could still infect living single-celled amoebae.The chances of these viruses infecting animals or humans are unclear, but the researchers say permafrost viruses should be considered a public health threat.Permafrost is a layer of soil that remains completely frozen year-round – at least it used to, before human activities started raising global temperatures. It covers 15 percent of land in the…

When I was in training to be an infectious disease doctor, there was a running joke that if a hospital team didn’t want to review the chart, they could just consult infectious diseases and we’d do it for them. It got laughs largely because it felt so true. A core function of infectious disease doctors — often abbreviated as “ID” in medical circles — is to diagnose and guide treatment (and, sometimes, prevention) of a variety of conditions ranging from pneumonia to bone infections to HIV to malaria. That requires a lot…

Midway through their set, Piri and Tommy perform a song called Silver Lining. It features vocalist Sophie “Piri” McBurnie pondering: “How did we get this far?” – which is not an unreasonable question. The duo released their debut single 18 months ago: since then, their career has encompassed TikTok ubiquity, co-signs from Charli XCX and Pink Pantheress – the latter the figurehead of vogue for bedroom pop into which Piri and Tommy neatly fit – and a major-label deal. Tonight’s venue isn’t huge, but it’s sold out, as is…

Following gargantuan global efforts against COVID-19, tuberculosis (TB) is once again the world's biggest infectious killer, a top expert has told AFP, lamenting the lack of focus on rooting out TB.​Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, hailed the swift and dramatic progress to rein in the COVID-19 pandemic, with a vast array of safe and effective vaccines, tests, and treatments developed in the space of two years.​"But the juxtaposition with TB is pretty stark," he said in a recent…

Few indie artists, even those at the height of their fame, can claim to have ever had a year quite as good as Japanese Breakfast’s 2021. Last year, it seemed as if the New York-based songwriter and musician, real name Michelle Zauner, had the Midas touch: first, she published, Crying in H Mart, which appeared on the New York Times bestseller chart; weeks later, she released Jubilee, a triumphant and critically acclaimed third record that sought to add some hard-won positivity to her thoughtful, cerebral indie rock. To cap…

When it comes to keeping mosquitoes from spreading malaria, some proposed approaches involve killing the insects, or stopping them from acquiring malaria parasites. A new method, however, stunts the growth of the parasites once they're in the mosquito's gut.Ordinarily, malaria is spread when a female mosquito bites someone who is already infected with the malaria-causing Plasmodium parasite. That parasite is carried with the sucked-up blood into the insect's gut, where it enters its next stage of development. Once it…

The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 spreads more easily than the other main variants but also causes less severe illness and death.Researchers discovered which mutations of the Omicron <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>SARS-CoV-2</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the official name of the virus strain that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Previous to…

Cholera is a severe diarrheal illness caused by a Vibrio cholerae bacterial infection of the intestine.A new study reveals why a particularly infectious strain of cholera declined.A recent study explains why a highly contagious cholera bug variant that caused significant disease outbreaks in the early 1990s did not, according to expectations, create the eighth cholera pandemic. Instead, it mysteriously vanished.The research examined samples of the cholera-causing bacterium O139 Vibrio cholerae and found that throughout…

There are more than a thousand different ways that climate change can cause outbreaks of infectious disease in humans, according to a new review.When analyzing the literature on 375 human pathogens, researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US found 58 percent of these diseases were, at some point in recorded history, aggravated by climate hazards.  That's 277 known diseases we need to watch for future outbreaks, and when you consider all the ways in which those…