The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week issued a warning about a disease known as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), an illness it says it knows very little about but can cause arm or leg weakness and paralysis, particularly in children. According to a Tuesday press briefing, there have been 62 confirmed…
New research identifies the various ways in which we’re most likely to come into contact with communicable diseases at airports. Turns out that toilets are surprisingly clean, but the same cannot be said for those plastic bins used at airport security, which are absolutely covered in viruses.
The end of summer is fast approaching, though the fun in the sun is coming to an even swifter conclusion for some of us: Take the tale of Paul Ceglia, the man who allegedly used forged documents naming him as a Facebook co-owner to try and rip off CEO Mark Zuckerberg in court. This week, police reportedly arrested…
Over the past few years, there’s been a steady rise in the rate of Americans who die by suicide and drugs each year. But while much of the attention surrounding these deaths has focused on the opioid crisis, a new study out Wednesday in the BMJ highlights a different aspect of that increase: More people, especially…
Researchers from Case Western Reserve University have synthesized an artificial human prion, a scientific first that could eventually lead to treatments for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other deadly brain-wasting disorders.
Leprosy is one of the oldest known diseases to afflict humans, yet its origin is mired in controversy. A new study, in which 10 strains of the disease were detected in the remains medieval Europeans, is now complicating the picture even further by pointing to western Europe as a potential launching point for leprosy.…
Australian pet food manufacturer Advance Pet is under investigation after its dog food was suspected to be associated with a string of cases involving dogs contracting a digestive disease. Today it announced it would reimburse owners’ vet bills and euthanasia costs after a voluntary recall of its dog food in March,…
It turns out the cute, harmless-looking rubber ducky floating around in your bathtub may actually be a Trojan horse for ravenous legions of “potentially pathogenic bacteria.”
Our conception of diabetes might be way off-base, a large international collaboration of researchers argue this month in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. Rather than just type 1 and type 2 diabetes, there could be at least five broad ways the insulin disorder manifests.
Measles is pulling off a disconcerting resurgence across the continent of Europe at the same time the vaccination rate is falling, per recent data from the World Health Organization.
A former immunology expert and laboratory director at the University of Pittsburgh alleges she was fired after blowing the whistle on safety violations at the university, including an incident when a laboratory monkey infected with a “select agent” escaped its cage, the Penn Record reported.
The dreaded smallpox virus was eradicated more than 40 years ago, but the threat of its return still looms. In an effort to develop a safer vaccine substitute, Canadian researchers have resurrected a close relative—the extinct horsepox virus—from scratch. Critics say the exercise was pointless, and because the results…
The Black Death, a plague responsible for killing around a third of the population of Europe during the 14th century, spread to millions of humans by rats that carried infected fleas—right? That’s the story we’ve long been told by historians. A new study upends this conventional thinking, showing that humans, and not…
An emerging trend among pet owners is the practice of feeding dogs and cats raw meat. This idea is that we should put our domestic cats and dogs on diets that more closely approximate what they might eat in nature. New research from Europe shows the surprising degree to which germs and parasites can be found in…
As many as 30 percent of feral rhesus macaque monkeys living in and outside of Florida state parks are infected with a strain of herpes that’s exceptionally dangerous to humans. Wildlife officials are now calling for the total removal of these free-roaming monkeys from the Sunshine State.
The White House’s purge of Barack Obama-era federal appointees has taken a few more turns with the termination of all remaining 16 members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDs, allegedly via a FedEx letter that offered no explanation, the Washington Blade reported this week.
It starts with a single lesion. And then another. Soon, the snake’s entire body is covered in the unsightly sores. If the snake is lucky, its skin will start molting, expunging the reptile of the infection. Less fortunate snakes will die. And in some cases, desperate snakes will spend more time in the sun to expedite…
Do you remember a time when life did not consist entirely of having your brain bludgeoned to mush with copies of The Art of the Deal? Nope? Didn’t think so. Anyhow, our rapidly decaying consensus reality took another neuron-devastating blow this week with news that scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and…
A new report from the US Centers for Disease Control shows that, while detection rates are improving, a surprising number of Americans live with HIV for a protracted period of time before it gets diagnosed—including patients who’ve visited their doctor.
Think you’re having a bad day? Check out this bear and his impossibly swollen tongue. Alarmed by the bear’s predicament, an international team of experts were asked to perform an emergency procedure, giving the poor animal a new lease on life.
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