News: Bloodsucking Flies Act as 'Flying Syringes' to Detect Malaria & Other Emerging Diseases in Wild Animals
Researchers have been studying the blood meals of flies to understand the flow of infectious pathogens in wild animals.
Outbreak Infected Search Results
News: Please, Montana, Don't Legalize Raw Milk
Some Montana inhabitants have been making impassioned pleas to legalize raw milk this week. The debate took place during a hearing on House Bill 325, which was held by the Senate Agriculture, Livestock, and Irrigation Committee on Tuesday, March 21.
How To: If You're Seeing Lock Screen 'DU' Malware When Charging, Uninstall These Apps Right Now
There was a somewhat recent outbreak of malware on Android, and it came from an unlikely source—the Google Play Store. Several established apps have received updates a few months ago that contained an unwanted add-on called either DU Quick Charge, DU Battery Boost, DU Boost Charge, DU Speed Charge, DU Speed Booster, or another name starting with DU.
How To: Treat blisters
If you’re a dancer, athlete or just breaking in a new pair of shoes you know that blister can add pain and discomfort long after they’re formed. By keeping a blister sterile and away from further friction you can get your blister to heal quickly.
How To: 4 Smartphone Tips to Help You Stay Safe During the Country's Reopening
It is a scary time to be alive. As states start to ease back shelter-in-place restrictions, the new world you're entering is still unsafe. With a vaccine months away, your best bet is to follow CDC guidelines and use the tools at your disposal.
How To: Find the Right App to Schedule an Insurance-Covered Virtual Doctor's Visit Right from Your Phone
The World Health Organization has declared the new coronavirus a pandemic, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends video visits with a healthcare professional to reduce the risk of being exposed to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. If you are experiencing mild flu-like symptoms, virtual doctor visits may also prevent you from endangering others.
News: Best Winter Flu Kit Essentials — All You Need to Feel Better, Faster
Congratulations, you've made it deep into the middle of flu season! If you're reading this, you're either a very smart preemptive sick day prepper, or already in the throes of fighting off a cold or flu situation.
News: Apple Just Released iOS 13.4 Public Beta 1 for iPhone, Includes New Memoji Stickers & More Convenient Mail Tools
After the lackluster update that was iOS 13.3.1, we beta testers were in need of some excitement. Thankfully, Apple delivered the goods with iOS 13.4 developer beta 1, introducing fun new features like fresh Memoji stickers and a new Mail toolbar. Of course, that update was for developers only, so we public testers are thrilled that Apple just released the first public beta today.
News: Here's Why You Should Be Using Private DNS on Your Phone
Nearly every connection to the internet is dependent on the Domain Name System. DNS, as it's more commonly called, translates domain names like gadgethacks.com into IP addresses, which is what network devices use to route data. The problem with DNS servers is that they don't have your privacy in mind.
How To: Dump a MacOS User's Chrome Passwords with EvilOSX
Barrow's article on Pupy made me wish for a RAT that could target an OS frequently used by gatekeepers at startups, tech companies, and creative firms: macOS. Once run, a RAT can do severe damage by dumping a user's stored credentials for many accounts. The best loot lives in the Chrome Password cache, and EvilOSX, an OS X RAT, infiltrates macOS and dumps these credentials.
News: Scientists See Bacteria Responding Electrically to Physical Stimuli for the First Time
Scientists know that bacteria create their own energy, get nutrients to run their cellular processes, and multiply. But, bacteria haven't been shown to respond to external mechanical stimulation or signals in a way that's similar to how our bodies respond to touch, until now.
News: Defective, Infectious Proteins Linked to Type 2 Diabetes
More than one in ten people in the US have type 2 diabetes — that's over 29 million people. It's characterized by excessive sugar (glucose) in the blood due to the development of resistance to insulin, the hormone that normally metabolizes glucose.
News: Change of Tune? Not Everyone Needs to Finish That Course of Antibiotics
After years of telling patients to finish any prescribed course of antibiotics completely, a group of researchers in the UK say it is no longer necessary, and could even be harmful if we want to preserve the antibiotics we can still use.
News: Every Hour Untreated Sepsis Survival Drops 4% — Here Are the Symptoms to Watch For
Twelve-year old Rory Staunton took a dive for a basketball during gym class and came up with a cut on his arm. The school nurse applied a couple of band-aids, without cleaning the cut, and off he went. In approximately three days, hospital physicians told his parents there was nothing else that they could do for their son; he was dead.
News: Deadly or Deliberate? Diarrhea Is Actually Your Immune System in Overdrive
Montezuma's revenge, the runs, the trots, or just diarrhea — everyone gets it sooner or later. What exactly is diarrhea good for, if anything?
News: Afraid of Needles? You'll Have No Excuse Not to Get Vaccinated with New Painless Flu Patch
A new medical development is going to change the way many of us look at getting the flu vaccine. A painless flu vaccine skin patch is making needles and vials a thing of the past. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University have shown that a flu vaccine can be administered safely and comfortably with this new patch, which delivers the vaccine through a matrix of tiny dissolving microneedles.
News: 'Useless' Antibiotics Work When Matched Up in Threes
The search is on to find antibiotics that will work against superbugs — bacteria that are rapidly becoming resistant to many drugs in our antibiotic arsenal.
How To: Seize Control of a Router with RouterSploit
A router is the core of anyone's internet experience, but most people don't spend much time setting up this critical piece of hardware. Old firmware, default passwords, and other configuration issues continue to haunt many organizations. Exploiting the poor, neglected computer inside these routers has become so popular and easy that automated tools have been created to make the process a breeze.
News: Some Treatments for 'Chronic Lyme' Are More Deadly Than the Disease Itself
While Lyme disease can be disabling, the wrong treatment for the infection can be fatal.
News: Mother's Body Teaches Fetal Immune System Not to Attack Itself Before Birth
Even before we are born, our immune system is hard at work. New research shows how the developing fetal immune system takes advantage of the time and opportunity of gestation — in the presence of mom's cells and tissues — to develop a sense of self.
News: Pesticides Used to Kill Zika Mosquitoes May Harm Babies Exposed Before Birth
Zika is a threat to unborn babies — the virus can cause neurological damage if it infects a mother during pregnancy. But as with many things, our solutions to the problem aren't always all that much better than the problem itself.
News: Have a Dog? Be Careful of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
Dangerous to humans and dogs, Rocky Mountain Fever, along with several other tickborne infections, is on the rise.
News: Lone Star Tick Arrives in Northeast with a Deadly, Underreported Infection
The possibility of severe tickborne illness is increasing as an aggressive tick from the American southeast moves up the Atlantic Coast.
News: A Protein Found in Ticks Can Help Kill MRSA Infections
As researchers from Yale searched our environment for compounds to aid in the battle against drug-resistant bacteria, they got an unlikely assist from ticks.
News: Hybrid Molecule Delivers 1-2 Punch to Find & Attack Nasty Staph Bacteria
Drug-resistant bacteria have made curing some infections challenging, if not nearly impossible. By 2050, it's estimated that 10 million people will be dying annually from infections with antibiotic-resistant organisms.
News: Bacteria-Killing Viruses Can Help Us Take Down Superbugs
Fighting fire with fire, scientists are harnessing the adaptability of helpful microbes to challenge the adaptability of deadly microbes. What are we talking about? Hunting with phages — viruses that attack and kill bacteria.
News: Kids' Snot Provides Unlikely Path for Superbugs to Move from Farm to Community
The noses of kids who live in areas of intense pig farming may harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria, presumably acquired from the animals, according to a new study by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, published in Environmental Health Perspectives.
News: Stealthy Bacteria Is Unexpected Cause of UTIs That Keep Coming Back
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.
News: Microbes Lost from Corals Due to Global Warming Cause 90% of Great Barrier Reef to Bleach
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.
News: Hospital Floors May Look Clean, but They're Teeming with Deadly Superbugs—Including MRSA, VRE & C. Diff
Hospitals are places we go to get well, and we don't expect to get sick or sicker there. But a study from researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Cleveland VA Medical Center in Ohio found that hospital floors in patient rooms were frequently contaminated with healthcare-associated pathogens—often dangerous multi-drug resistant bacteria.
News: A Beach Infected with Fecal Coliform Can Ruin Your Vacation, but Seagrasses Can Save the Day
Seagrass may help your favorite beach stay a little less toxic. A new study, led by Joleah Lamb, a postdoctoral researcher in the Harvell Lab at Cornell University, found that coastal seagrasses reduce levels of pathogens dangerous to humans and marine organisms in near-shore waters.
News: Dangerous Bacterial Films Communicate with Electric Pulses, Which Means We Could Zap Them to Interfere
Lighthouses and signal fires may have been the first social media. Without the ability to share language, a distant light meant "humans here." A new study from the University of California, San Diego, finds that bacteria can also send out a universal sign to attract the attention of their own, and other bacterial species.
News: Radical Theory Linking Alzheimer's to Infections Could Revolutionize Treatment
There are all kinds of theories—many supported by science—about what causes Alzheimer's disease. Tangles of protein called ß-amyloid (pronounced beta amyloid) plaques are prominently on the list of possible causes or, at least, contributors. An emerging theory of the disease suggests that those plaques aren't the problem, but are actually our brains' defenders. They show up to help fight an infection, and decades later, they become the problem.
News: How Your Diet & Gut Bacteria Work Together to Reduce Risk of Colon Cancer
We all know you are what you eat—or so the expression goes—but it's good to remember that what you are (at least intestinally) is mainly bacteria. A new study has shown that what you eat, and how your gut microbiome reacts to that food, might be a key player in your risk of developing a certain type of colon cancer—and changing your diet can help decrease your risk.
News: The Root Cause of Type 1 Diabetes Could Be a Common Childhood Viral Infection
A young child becomes very thirsty very often and seems tired all the time. A visit to the pediatrician determines she has type 1 diabetes. The onset of type 1 diabetes may seem sudden, and it can be, but the disease may actually have been triggered by common childhood viruses years earlier.
News: 'Vampire' Bacteria May Lead Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance
New weapons are needed to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Instead of drugs, scientists have discovered in an animal study that they may be able to harness vampire bacteria to vanquish pneumonia.
News: The Consequences of Hacking
Mostly all hackers like to have a laugh. We like to have fun! We like to troll. And maybe, even cause some havoc once in a while. But, while we do this, we must always stay in the line of the law.
How To: Your Chrome Extensions May Be Stealing Your Personal Info: Here's How to Stop Them
A long time ago, we recommended the Hover Zoom extension for Chrome as an easy way to blow up small image thumbnails without actually have to "click" on the images themselves. Over the past year, there have been reports that Hover Zoom now collects and sells your browsing data to third-party advertisers without your consent.
How To: Understanding Signature Schemes: How Data Sources Are Authenticated, Secured, & Spoofed
One of the biggest problems in data security is authentication of data and its source. How can Alice be certain that the executable in her inbox is from the venerable Bob, and not from the not-so-venerable Oscar? Clearly Alice wants to know because if this file is actually sent to her by Oscar, the file might not be a game, but a trojan that can do anything on her computer such as sift through her email and passwords, upload her honeymoon pictures, or even turn on microphones and webcams. Thi...
How To: Scan Your Samsung Galaxy S3 for Malware, Infected Apps, & Unauthorized Surveillance
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was so fearful of attacks, he had his heart defibrillator re-calibrated to block incoming wireless signals so that highly skilled hackers couldn't send him into cardiac arrest.