The gut bacterium Bacteroides fragilis has long presented researchers with a paradox. It has been associated with colorectal cancer, yet it also lives quite happily in most healthy people. A new study from a Danish research team offers a possible clue. When they looked beyond the bacterium itself and into its genome, they found a…
An outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus in India has put many countries in Asia on high alert, given the fatality rate in humans can be between 40% and 75%. Several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, have introduced new screening and testing measures, after at least two people died of Nipah virus in the…
Ignore photo claiming to be HIV under microscope – shows caterpillar, not virus! IN SHORT: Viral posts circulating on Facebook in Kenya and Tanzania claim to show HIV magnified under a microscope, suggesting the virus’s anatomy makes it drug-resistant. But the image actually shows a caterpillar and HIV resists treatment through genetic mutations, not because…
The mosquito-borne virus has crossed the Taiwan Strait from southern China, where confirmed cases of chikungunya top 8,000. Taiwan has reported its first confirmed case of chikungunya fever, imported from China, where a historic outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus is under way. Chikungunya has swept through southern China in recent weeks, primarily in the manufacturing…
