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.
Not all bacteria in the eyes cause infection. A group of researchers from the National Eye Institue has shown that not only is there a population of bacteria on the eyes that reside there but they perform an important function. They help activate the immune system to get rid of bad, potentially infection-causing — pathogenic — bacteria there.
Wherever there are people, the party is sure to follow. Well, a party of microbes, at least. That is what scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found after a 30-day microbial observation of the inflatable lunar/Mars analog habitat (IMAH).
A week into my internship, I experienced pretty serious back pain and slight difficulty breathing. I scheduled a doctor's appointment to make sure nothing was wrong, and I got a surprising diagnosis: bad posture.
The nice part about creating a song playlist is that it's essentially like your own customized album. You can organize all your different music tastes into one large collection or separate them into each of their own genres.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death of men and women in the US. Over half a million Americans die from it annually. Atherosclerosis — a build up of plaque in the arteries — is a common feature of heart disease and can be caused by smoking, fats and cholesterol in the blood, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Even though HIV rates declined 18% between 2008 and 2014, 1.1 million people in the US are living with the infection. Part of that is because HIV is treatable, but not curable.
Over the past week, companies took a variety of approaches to investing in augmented reality. Lampix is backing its own effort to build an ecosystem for augmented reality platforms. Nokia and Xiaomi are teaming up on numerous fronts, potentially including augmented reality.
Look no further than Flint, Michigan, to discover the serious consequences of contaminated drinking water. Around the world, water polluted by pathogens and toxins sickens people or cuts them off from safe drinking water. Looking for a solution, researchers created tiny, swimming robots that pack a powerful punch against waterborne pathogens.
Open-source data scraping is an essential reconnaissance tool for government agencies and hackers alike, with big data turning our digital fingerprints into giant neon signs. The problem is no longer whether the right data exists, it's filtering it down to the exact answer you want. TheHarvester is a Python email scraper which does just that by searching open-source data for target email addresses.
People who have heart disease get shingles more often than others, and the reason has eluded scientists since they first discovered the link. A new study has found a connection, and it lies in a defective white cell with a sweet tooth.
Despite the threat of superbugs, physicians continue to prescribe antibiotics when they might not be needed, and patients are suffering.
Snapchat recently updated their Android and iPhone apps with a new feature called Snap Map which lets you share your current location with other Snapchatters, as well as see their current locations. It may sound like an interesting new feature, but sharing your exact location with all of your Snapchat followers is dangerous, to say the least. Luckily, it's easy to turn this feature off.
Facebook is testing a new feature in India. One that could help you protect your profile photos from being used on sites without your permission.
Legionnaires' disease is named after 1976 outbreak in Philadelphia that sickened 221 people and killed 34. More often striking adults over the age of 50, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported two cases where newborns contracted the often fatal disease — at their moment of 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.
We're all looking to meet someone, and in this day and age the easiest way to do that is through one of the various dating apps out there. But we can all admit it can get disheartening swiping through all of those people for the frustration of someone not answering your messages after matching. The fact is, we could be missing out on great people just because they don't have time in their busy lives to answer their dating apps every day. Not to mention the fact that we as a society are becomi...
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.
An innovative new wound dressing has been developed by a research team at Lodz University of Technology in Poland that uses crustacean shells to create a bandage that packs an antimicrobial punch — and even more potential to help solve a global problem.
Even though the Ebola virus was discovered as recently as 1976, over 30,000 people have been infected since, and half have died a horrible death. Since there's no way to cure the infection, the world desperately needs a way to prevent it — and the five similar viruses in its family, the ebolaviruses.
The bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae is a bad actor known for being antibiotic-resistant and causing a variety of serious infections in hospitals, including pneumonia, surgical site wounds, and meningitis. K. pneumoniae is something you do not want to encounter if you have a compromised immune system.
Bioluminescence — the ability of an organism to produce and emit light — is nature's light show. Plants, insects, fish, and bacteria do it, and scientists understand how. Until now, though, we didn't know how fungi glow.
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.
Being infected with HIV means a lifetime of antiviral therapy. We can control the infection with those drugs, but we haven't been able to cure people by ridding the body completely of the virus. But thanks to a new study published in Molecular Therapy by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine (LKSOM) at Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh, all that may change.
Colorado State University scientists have developed new tech that quickly identifies the presence of Zika virus in mosquito populations — and in human body fluid.
Maybe you thought sitting behind a Mac gives you special protection when it comes to getting hacked. Thanks to a a new report from Check Point, you can kiss that theory goodbye. The cyber security company just uncovered the latest strain of malware — OSX/Dok — infecting all versions of macOS (previously Mac OS X).
On October 17, 1943, a story in the New York Herald Tribune read "Many laymen — husbands, wives, parents, brothers, sisters, friends — beg Dr. Keefer for penicillin," according to the American Chemical Society. Dr. Chester Keefer of Boston was responsible for rationing the new miracle drug, penicillin.
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.
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.
Two viral liver diseases could help us find the path toward the cause of Parkinson's disease. Researchers from the University of Oxford and UCL Institute of Neurology in London have reported an association between hepatitis B and C infections and an increased risk of Parkinson's disease. Their findings were published early online in the journal Neurology.
To keep fungal pathogens at bay in their crowded homes, wood ants mix potions to create powerful protection for their nest and their young.
When you're an audiophile, managing music is a labor of love. Metadata, like artist names, album thumbnails, and genres, is attached to many digital audio files, though some of the songs in your library might not have such tags, and others may have missing or incorrect information.
Call them what you will—moss piglets, water bears, or by their real name, tardigrade—but these intriguing tiny creatures can come back from the brink of death. They can survive boiling, deep freezing, UV radiation, completely drying out, and even a trip to space—without the benefit of being in a spacecraft.
A new study has found that up to half of people who think they have a penicillin "allergy" can still receive the drug, and other antibiotics with similar structures, without any negative reactions to the meds. Why? Because they're not really allergic, doctors say.
Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment, but it is also one of the most commonly found heavy metals in wastewater, deposited there by inappropriate disposal and arsenical pesticides, for example.
Marijuana is legal to use for medical purposes in 28 states and the District of Columbia, but the quick development of this new industry could have left some regulation issues in the lurch.
As drug-resistant bacteria become more commonplace, researchers are looking for new antibacterial strategies to disrupt disease-causing microbes. Some scientists are working to create new drugs, while others are trying out drug combinations. Another group, however, are ditching pharmaceuticals altogether and experimenting with non-drug alternatives.
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but one annoying invasive weed may hold the answer to treating the superbug MRSA. Researchers from Emory University have found that the red berries of the Brazilian peppertree contain a compound that turns off a gene vital to the drug-resistance process.
A new study just out reveals that HIV takes hold in the human body with the help of cells that usually work to heal, not kill.
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.
