For younger children, a day at the playground is not complete without some sandbox time. Long a favorite of children and parents, sandboxes could also be sheltering dangerous pathogens.
Just like your gastrointestinal tract, and the soil we walk on — a dust storm has a collection of bacteria, fungi, and viruses all its own called a "dust microbiome."
It's not always easy to get to the root of an infection outbreak. Epidemiologists study infected people, contacts, and carefully examine where the infections happened and when. In the case of a 2012 outbreak of pertussis — whooping cough — in Oregon, scientists just published an analysis of how vaccination status affected when a child became infected during the outbreak.
Intense exercise can cause problems with our digestive tract. It even has a name — "Exercise-induced Gastrointestinal Syndrome." Simply put, strenuous exercise can damage the gut and let the bacteria that reside there potentially pass into the bloodstream.
Most of us have already had an encounter with the Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, for short. As part of the herpes family, it's one of the most common disease-causing viruses in humans. We get the disease with (or without) some nasty symptoms, then we recover. However, EBV stays in our body after the illness has ended, and it's one of the few viruses known to cause cancer.
As headlines focus on melting glaciers and rising water levels caused by global warming, climate change is quietly taking its toll on the nearly invisible occupants of this planet, the microbes.
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.
The evolution of our infection-fighting systems may have something to teach modern scientists. That's what a group from the University of Granada in Spain found when they studied a protein that's been around for over four billion years. Their work, by senior author José Sánchez-Ruiz and colleagues in the Department of Physical Chemistry, was published in the journal Cell Reports.
While at work, you notice your gloves changing color, and you know immediately that you've come in contact with dangerous chemicals. Bandages on a patient signal the presence of unseen, drug-resistant microbes. These are ideas that might have once seemed futuristic but are becoming a reality as researchers move forward with technology to use living bacteria in cloth to detect pathogens, pollutants, and particulates that endanger our lives.
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.
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.
In the ongoing search to find better ways to use antibiotics, an extract made from maple syrup has some surprisingly important medical benefits.
Viral infections have been the focus of attention in the development of autoimmune diseases—diseases where the body's immune system reacts to the body's own cells—because they trigger the immune system into action.
Phase 2 of a Zika vaccine trial began in the United States this week, along with Central and South America.
Tremendous strides have been made in the treatment and outlook for patients infected with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. Treatment with a combination of antiretroviral drugs can keep patients with HIV alive for decades, without symptoms of the infection. The trouble is, if HIV-infected people stop taking their medications, the virus takes over in full force again—because the virus hides out quietly in cells of the immune system, kept in check, but not killed by the treatment.
We can add one more health effect of our gut bacteria to the growing list. Researchers from the UK have just reported that the gut microbiota plays a role, both directly and indirectly, on the toxicity and efficacy of chemotherapy. Their findings are published online in the journal Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology.
The culprit probably wasn't what doctors were expecting when a 57-year-old man in Hong Kong came to the hospital. The patient was admitted to the intensive care unit in critical condition. A clue to the cause of the infection would lie in the man's profession—he was a butcher.
Before you bite into that beautiful tomato in your garden, the tomato fruitworm, or the Colorado potato beetle, might have beat you to it.
Scientists are constantly on the search for new organisms, species, and other types of life. A special group of these researchers, calling themselves "bioprospectors," dive deep into mines to find unique lifeforms with special properties not found anywhere else.
It hasn't even been eight years since Candida auris was discovered—cultured and identified from the ear canal of a patient in Japan—and now it's drug-resistant, setting up residence in hospitals, killing patients, and wreaking havoc across the globe.
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.
The search for the causative agent of colony collapse—the mass die off of honey bees throughout the US and Europe—has escalated with increasing confusion lately. Everything from pesticides and stress to viruses and mites have been implicated, and some researchers think that many of these environmental factors work together to take down hives.
As researchers learn more and more about our intestinal bacteria—also called the gut microbiome—we're finding out that these microbes aren't just influencing our health and wellness, they're a useful tool for improving it, too.
The presence of certain bacteria can indicate whether the vaginal tract is healthy or not. It could also impact the likelihood of acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases, like HIV, a new study suggests.
Many people drink green tea for health reasons, and it's no wonder. This beverage is a superstar when it comes to antioxidant levels, and is being studied for its potentially curative properties on multiple health concerns, whether it's staving off the aging process or fighting cancer.
It's a small but very real frustration: you want a chilled drink, but you open the freezer only to see nothing but empty ice trays. Fortunately, there's a simple way to make ice cubes quickly—use hot water. Yup, you read that correctly. Hot water freezes more rapidly than cold.
Have you ever fallen victim to a clever Jedi mind trick? Don't worry. It happens. There are evolutionary reasons as to why our brains sometimes give into the oldest tricks in the book. Fortunately, the more you understand the tricks of a salesman, the easier it is to avoid their gripping psychological influence. Clue #1: Too Much Specificity
I've never had a black eye, but I was in a car accident that turned my entire ear dark purple a few years ago. Believe me; it was enough to get more than a few funny looks.
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Autodesk Maya, affectionately known as just Maya to its users, is a 3D computer graphics software that makes it easy to create impressive, realistic models of real-life - or imagined - objects. Super useful for graphic designers, film makers and web designers, the program is one that you should study if you're looking to go into one of the fields above.
It's amazing what you can create with a few, everyday household and office supplies. Most of these items are already sitting in your junk drawers, so there's no need to spend money! Kipkay shows you 4 awesome hacks you can make in this "household hack pack" video.
This is a tutorial for controlling the Pine tip moth. Identifying and controlling the pine tip moth consists of studying the small plants of pine. The attacks on pine trees is caused by Nantucket pine tree moth found along the Rio Grande Valley as far north as Espanola, it has spread to South Arizona and California by importing grafts from Mexico. The moths are 3/8 inch long reddish brown to grey in color. They attack the main stem of the baby plant and the pines instead of growing vertical g...
Excerpts from a presentation by Dr. Simeon Hein at the International UFO Congress, 2005. Dr. Hein is the director of the Institute for Resonance in Boulder, Colorado. The Institute is devoted to the study of subtle-energy sciences including remote viewing, crop circles and related subjects. Dr. Hein has a Ph.D. in sociology and has previously taught research methodology and statistic courses. Dr. Hein first learned remote viewing in 1996 and subsequently became involved in crop circle researc...
Sometimes pills aren't the best answer. Doctors do not need to prescribe medications for common health problems, such as high blood pressure. They can be helped by simple adjusting your lifestyle. If you have high blood pressure, you are more than twice as likely to develop heart disease and six times more likely to have a stroke than people with normal blood pressure. Manage your condition through diet.
The belly roll is a great place to start for aspiring belly dancers. The belly roll can be mastered by first isolating the upper abdomen and the lower abdomen separately. Combine these two movements for a perfect belly roll with instruction from an expert: Yasmeen began dancing at the young age of 3 and studied ballet, flamenco, folkloric, hip-hop and modern dance styles, as well as tribal fusion belly dance and Oriental Classical Egyptian belly dance. Learn more belly dancing dance moves fro...
Childhood obesity is becoming a national epidemic. If we don't improve what our kids eat soon, the next generation will have a significantly shorter lifespan. Instilling good eating habits when kids are young makes it much easier for them to stay healthy as they grow older.
Learn how to weigh yourself correctly. Monitoring your weight is difficult when it can fluctuate three to five pounds in a single day. This system will help.
Learn how to reduce your risk of allergies. Transform your home into a sanctuary for your eyes, nose, and throat by reducing the risk of allergies.
In this video, we learn how to speak Spanish: "me gusta" (I like). First, you will need to learn how to form sentences. After saying "me gusta", you will need to say a verb that you like to do. These include: "nadar" (to swim), "practicar deportes" (to practice sports), and "estudiar" (to study). These are just a few of the many words you can use for verbs. An example of a sentence would be "me gusta tocar la guitarra" (I like to play guitar). If you would like to say you don't like to do som...
From Ramanujan to calculus co-creator Gottfried Leibniz, many of the world's best and brightest mathematical minds have belonged to autodidacts. And, thanks to the Internet, it's easier than ever to follow in their footsteps (or just finish your homework or study for that next big test). With this installment from Internet pedagogical superstar Salman Khan's series of free math tutorials, you'll learn how to unpack and solve word problems that require you to divide whole numbers.
