After California college student Luis Ortiz blacked out and was taken to the hospital in 2015, doctors were startled to discover the reason his brain was swelling—a one-centimeter long, wriggling tapeworm living within a ventricle in the middle of his brain.
Cholera may be rare in the US, but cases of the disease have increased worldwide since 2005, particularly in Africa, southeast Asia, and Haiti. An estimated 3 to 5 million people are infected, and more than 100,000 die from the disease globally each year, mostly from dehydration.
You might feel the bite, you might not, but an infected mosquito has injected you with a parasite named Plasmodium falciparum, a single-cell protozoa that quickly takes up residence in your body.
Transmitted by ticks, Lyme disease is a serious infection that is probably headed your way. A recent study confirms the pathogen that causes Lyme disease is now established in nine national parks in the East, including Acadia and Shenandoah National Parks.
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.
One of my favorite things about American Chinese food is how easy it is to eat: the pieces are bite-sized, the flavors are addictive, and the meat is always tender and easy to chew. But if you've ever tried to replicate any of your favorite takeout in the kitchen, you've likely noticed that the high heat required for most recipes thoroughly dries out the meat that you're trying to cook.
The other day I was doing the math on roughly how many eggs I eat each year. I estimated about 500. That's a lot of eggs. And, subsequently, that's a lot of eggshells to throw in the trash.
Modern medicine utilizes cutting-edge technology more than ever, so it would only make sense that the powerful handheld computers we all carry around these days could play a big role in wellness.
If you're anything like me, you probably think it's borderline sacrilege to even think about a sandwich or a burger that doesn't have a layer of smooth mayonnaise. But I don't just keep a jar of it in my fridge for lunch—it's also there for practical purposes.
Herbs, both fresh and dried, can be intimidating and mysterious to cooks. Just how much is too much? How do you prepare them?
I'm an impulsive baker, which means that the instructions to "bring ingredients to room temperature" make me want to kick myself for not thinking ahead. Sure, some ingredients like milk or water you can heat up, but that means messing up an extra pot or pan.
Broccoli is super. Not only is it jam-packed with nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin A, folic acid, calcium and fibre, but it's one veggie that refuses to be just a side-dish. Nobody puts broccoli in the corner.
Transition animations are an essential element of any mobile operating system. They give the user a sense of what's happening on the screen, where the apps are coming from, and where they're going.
I love my cast-iron skillet, but I never seasoned it properly. Instead, I took that sucker out of its packaging, wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove any factory dust, and started cooking with it ASAP. And you know what? It works just fine.
Fasting—or the practice of regularly abstaining from ingesting anything except water—is a pretty drastic move. I tried to fast for two days and made it to the 12-hour mark, which is when I broke down and ate a quart of ice cream.
It's the biggest day of the year for all things Google. Their developer conference, dubbed Google I/O, gives us a peak at what the guys at Mountain View have been working on over the course of the past year, and this year, Android was center stage.
Sony has been hard at work refining its Xperia line of flagship phones. With a 6-month release cycle, they've managed to slim bezels, increase viewing angles, and boost processing power in the 1.5-year span between the original Xperia Z and the Z2.
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Sometimes, we don't have a specific target in mind, but rather we are simply looking for vulnerable and easy-to-hack targets anywhere on the planet. Wouldn't be great if we had a search engine like Google that could help us find these targets? Well, we do, and it's called Shodan!
For my money, one of the greatest improvements brought about from the smartphone revolution is the advent of visual voicemail. No longer do we have to slog through dial menus or trudge through every single message to get to the next. We can just look at our messages, right there on our screens, organized neatly like emails or text messages.
Wet shoes are uncomfortable, no one can deny that. Just think about walking around with soaking wet footwear ... and each squishy step you take. Makes you cringe, doesn't it? It can happen in heavy rain, at the beach, or from an unforeseen puddle on the street. And while you can't always avoid soggy shoes, you can rest easy knowing that the next time this happens to you, you know the secret trick to drying your shoes faster without damaging them with excessive heat.
In this year of everything going virtual and remote, it makes even more sense now that Hollywood is leaning heavily on augmented reality. In this case, it's HBO using AR to promote its highly-acclaimed original programming.
The Animal Crossing series has been a big hit for Nintendo, so in a bid to enhance the experience even more for users, the game is getting the augmented reality treatment.
There are times when leadership is tested. This is one of those times. As government and business leaders around the world are grappling with the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, the real-time responses to the crisis from many leaders have been great and, at times, less-than-optimal.
You're minding your business when your Apple Watch taps you. To your surprise, the watch claims your heart rate dipped abnormally low. The news might come as a shock — especially if you have no history of a heart condition — but before you panic, you should take the time to fully understand what this alert is really saying and what you can and should do about it.
Regarding foodborne pathogens, eating fish is not as hazardous as it was a few years ago — but if fins are on the menu, it's good to have a heads-up about what's good and what's bad these days.
Infections with group A streptococcus, like Streptococcus pyogenes, claim over a half million lives a year globally, with about 163,000 due to invasive strep infections, like flesh-eating necrotizing fasciitis and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.
Young girls, especially those who live in areas where HIV is epidemic, like sub-Saharan Africa, are particularly vulnerable to becoming infected with HIV. A vaginal ring containing the antiviral agent dapivirine has been shown to decrease the chance of developing HIV-1 in adult women over 21 and now in the first step for use in adolescents, the ring has been shown to be safe and well-tolerated in that younger age group.
During the millions of years they've been on earth horseshoe crabs have developed a trick that can save our lives even now — and may be especially useful in the fight against healthcare-associated infections.
As a part of the already crowded field of diseases transmitted by ticks, you may not know the disease babesiosis, a dangerous infection caused by a parasite that infiltrates blood cells.
Think of the coolest, most unique way to create art that you can. Got it? Now think about creating that art out of living things.
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?
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.
You can get eggs and high-quality compost from backyard chickens—but you can also get Salmonella.
For some, drinking raw milk is a way to get back to nature, improve family nutrition, and hedge against asthma and allergies. However, according to public health authorities, drinking raw or unpasteurized milk is a big mistake—even fatal. So what's the story?
Six people have died from fungal infections in Pittsburgh hospitals since 2014—that fact is indisputable. The rest of the situation is much vaguer. A lawsuit has been filed against the hospitals on behalf of some of the deceased patients, alleging that moldy hospital linens are to blame. While the lawyers argue over who's at fault, let's look at how this could have happened.
Prion diseases are a group of infectious brain diseases that causes extensive tissue damage, resulting in sponge-like spaces in brain tissue. Prions include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (often called mad cow disease), and chronic wasting disease in hoofed ruminant mammals.
Jostled in the airport, someone is coughing in line. The air looks empty but it is loaded with microbes that make their way into your body. You get sick. You give it to your family, and that's pretty much it. But what if you were so contagious that you spread it to your entire community and beyond?
When Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders nurse, returned to New Jersey from working with Ebola patients in West Africa in 2014, she was surprised by her reception. Instead of a quiet return to her home in Maine after four weeks on the front line of Ebola treatment, she was quarantined by the State of New Jersey in Newark. She later filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for violation of her civil rights, false imprisonment, and invasion of privacy.
Joe McKenna died when he was 30 years old. A young married man with his future ahead of him, he was cleaning up the station where he worked as a fireman. Struck by a piece of equipment fallen from a shelf, Joe complained of a sore shoulder. Over the next week, Joe worsened and ended up in the hospital. Chilled, feverish, and delirious, his organs shut down from an infection we'd now call septic shock.
How do I get rid of these zits?! Whether its pimples, blackheads, or whiteheads, the name is the same, and the name is acne.
