The Latest on Invisiverse: Page 5

As summer mosquito season approaches, researchers are warning people with previous exposure to West Nile virus to take extra precautions against Zika. A new study found that animals with antibodies to West Nile in their blood have more dangerous infections with Zika than they would normally.

This just in! Some of Frito-Lay's chips might be bad for your health for reasons other than the fact that they're deep fried potatoes.

When you think ticks, one of the first things to come to mind is Lyme disease. However, as terrible as Lyme disease is, there's another threat from ticks rising in rank in Connecticut and the Northeast — one that is spreading and that hospitals are not prepared for — the Powassan virus.

Researchers have been studying the blood meals of flies to understand the flow of infectious pathogens in wild animals.

It's about time people acknowledged that judging drug users would do nothing productive to help them. In the US this week, two new programs are launching that should help addicts be a little safer: Walgreens Healthcare Clinic will begin offering to test for HIV and hepatitis C next week, and Las Vegas is set to introduce clean syringe vending machines to stop infections from dirty needles.

Every party has a pooper, and that's why you're reading this article. We don't mean to be a downer on such a fun day as 4/20, but it's important to make sure you know about the source of your pot, especially if you're one of the 2,299,016 people who use medical marijuana in the US.

Electrical impulses course through our heart and keep it beating. That's why a jolt from an automated external defibrillator can boost it back into action if the beating stops. But new research says there may be more to keeping a heart beating than just electrical impulses.

Our quest to find new antibiotics has taken a turn — a turn down the road, that is. A team of scientists from the University of Oklahoma is scooping up roadkill and searching for bacteria on them that might yield the world's next antibiotic.

Our quest to find novel compounds in nature that we can use against human diseases —a process called bioprospecting — has led a research team to a small frog found in India. From the skin slime of the colorful Hydrophylax bahuvistara, researchers reported finding a peptide — a small piece of protein — that can destroy many strains of human flu and can even protect mice against the flu.

In March, we wrote about the growing threat of yellow fever in Brazil. At the time, the disease had killed just over a 100 people. Unfortunately, the disease has only spread since then with many more people infected and more killed.

If you have encountered bed bugs lately, you are not alone. While the pesticides used to fight these pests are losing effectiveness, a fungus shows promise in knocking the bugs out of beds everywhere.

Over the past eight months, ten infants at UC Irvine Medical Center tested positive for the same strand of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Despite the danger of this superbug due to its high resistance to most antibiotics, this information was only released to the public on Thursday. Thankfully, all ten babies survived and are currently healthy.

Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK), a rare eye infection caused by the Acanthamoeba ameba found in tap water, affects a few dozen people in the US every year. In some cases, it can have devastating effects, like what Irenie Ekkeshis has experienced; She was blinded by AK in her right eye due to a contaminated contact lens.

Texas has become only the latest state to face an unfortunate outbreak of mumps, but so far seems to be the hardest hit. On April 12, two days before the CDC's report was released, the Texas Department of State Health Services released a health advisory indicating this is the highest instance of mumps reported in 22 years.

Onshore, or on a boat, have you ever wondered what swims below in the dark water? Using standard equipment and a new process, marine scientists can now get a good look at what is swimming by—just by analyzing the water.

Warning: If you are eating and for some reason still decided to click on this article, turn around now. Maui, Hawaii health officials have reported finding at least six cases of angiostrongyliasis, a parasitic lungworm that infects humans. Colloquially, it's known as rat lungworm disease. And if you think that name is awful, just wait until you hear what it does to the human body.

Potbellies don't have to happen as we age, according to two studies done on twins published online in the International Journal of Obesity.

When it comes to global warming, most of us think of carbon dioxide emissions. While carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide emissions have stayed constant for the last three years. On the other hand, methane, the second most important gas, has been steadily rising since 2007.

Usually, we think of vaccines as preventative, a shot we get to prevent the flu or some childhood disease like measles or mumps. But there are vaccines for other purposes, such as the ones studied by researchers from the Netherlands.

In the ongoing search to find better ways to use antibiotics, an extract made from maple syrup has some surprisingly important medical benefits.

How can bacteria that lives in the throat of 10%–35% of people—without causing an infection—cause life-threatening meningitis and sepsis in others?

The squiggly guys in this article's cover image are Propionibacterium acnes. These bacteria live in low-oxygen conditions at the base of hair follicles all over your body. They mind their own business, eating cellular debris and sebum, the oily stuff secreted by sebaceous glands that help keep things moisturized. Everybody has P. acnes bacteria—which are commonly blamed for causing acne—but researchers took a bigger view and discovered P. acnes may also play a part in keeping your skin clear.

An advance in the race to stop birth defects caused by Zika-infected mothers has been made by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. They have identified the process Zika uses to gain entry into the placenta, and published their findings in the journal Biochemistry.

Growing populations and higher temperatures put pressure on world food supplies. Naturally occurring soil bacteria may save crops in drought-stressed areas, put more land into crop production, and produce more food.

Officials in Colorado are concerned as 61 cases of the mumps were reported so far this year, a significant increase in the prevalence of the contagious disease in the state.

Having a Clostridium difficile infection means stomach pains, diarrhea, fever, and loss of appetite, and if the symptoms weren't bad enough, the disease often reoccurs. Now, new research has found an increased risk of recurrence in people who take medication to treat their stomach acid, gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, or stomach discomfort.

To keep fungal pathogens at bay in their crowded homes, wood ants mix potions to create powerful protection for their nest and their young.

Most females have had at least one urinary tract infection in their lifetimes. Recurrent UTIs are particularly problematic in young, sexually active women, where about 80% of the infections are caused by the bacteria Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli.

There have been mumps outbreaks in three different US colleges so far this year as instances of the illness are on the rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Obstetric tetanus in an unvaccinated Amish woman after a home birth has emphasized the need for preventative healthcare.

A baby with severe Zika-related birth defects was born in San Diego County this week, prompting officials to urge pregnant women to avoid disease hotspots.

Nineteen days ago, several hundred people could have been exposed by a traveler with measles in Nova Scotia, Canada. The next day, someone flying from Minnesota to Nebraska may have spread the measles to other passengers. A couple weeks ago, it's possible that a man and his six-month old child spread the measles in several Seattle-based locations. Authorities are trying to locate persons who may have been in contact with these people. None of the persons with measles were vaccinated. Why?

Experts from the World Health Organization just expressed concern for the rising number of measles outbreaks across Europe. Despite a perfectly capable existing vaccine, "immunization coverage has dropped below the necessary threshold of 95%," causing the measles to spread throughout the European region.

When the mosquito that carries the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) bites someone, the parasite must travel to the liver where it undergoes part of its lifecycle before infecting red blood cells and spreading to its next host. Until now, the first step of how the parasite gets to the liver hasn't been clear.

Soy sauce is a sushi essential for most Americans and we don't often consider its exact origins whilst chowing down on that tuna roll.

The search for a cancer treatment that selectively finds and kills only the cancerous cells has just made a giant leap forward.

The office of your physician, or your local hospital, is where you go when you need medical care. But it could also be where you could pick up a life-threatening infection.

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the largest living system on the planet. Yet more than 90% of the reef is bleaching because of the loss of a tiny algae that lives within the coral.

According to Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris of The Chirurgeon's Apprentice, hospitals during the first half of the nineteenth century were known as "Houses of Death."

Bats are an important part of the US economy. They devour metric tons of bugs every night that would otherwise ravage crops and also be generally disgusting-looking and make you itchy. But they're in danger from a nasty fungal infection called white-nose syndrome, which has just popped up in Texas and has been spreading across the country.