http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. How does the bacterium Shigella—the cause of a deadly diarrheal disease—detect that it's in a human host? Ohio University scientists have found that a biological "RNA thermometer" monitors whether the environment is right for the bacterium to produce the factors it needs to survive within the body, according to a study published May 21 in the journal PLOS ONE. http://phys.org/news288373970.html Biology Tue, 21 May 2013 17:00:05 EST news288373970 More than three quarters of new, emerging or re-emerging human diseases are caused by pathogens from animals, according to the World Health Organization. http://phys.org/news283007763.html Biology Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:30:01 EST news283007763 (Phys.org)—Ecologists often rely on the twin standards of the variety and numbers of species to describe a given region's diversity. But scaling down the size also scales up the numbers: On and in our bodies is a community with ten times as many microbes as there are cells of a human host, which makes counting species and comparing diversity an intractable problem. http://phys.org/news279440131.html Biology Thu, 07 Feb 2013 06:15:42 EST news279440131 A new study, published December 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, finds that vector-borne and parasitic diseases have substantial effects on economic development across the globe, and are major drivers of differences in income between tropical and temperate countries. The burden of these diseases is, in turn, determined by underlying ecological factors: it is predicted to rise as biodiversity falls. This has significant implications for the economics of health care policy in developing countries, and advances our understanding of how ecological conditions can affect economic growth. http://phys.org/news275848883.html Biology Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:00:12 EST news275848883 When humans have parasites, the organisms live in our bodies, co-opt our resources and cause disease. However, it turns out that parasites themselves can have their own co-habitants. http://phys.org/news271518454.html Biology Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:00:25 EST news271518454 Researchers from the Institut Pasteur and CNRS have set up a new optical microscopy approach that combines two recent imaging techniques in order to visualize molecular assemblies without affecting their biological functions, at a resolution 10 times better than that of traditional microscopes. Using this approach, they were able to observe the AIDS virus and its capsids (containing the HIV genome) within cells at a scale of 30 nanometres, for the first time with light. This newly developed approach represents a significant advance in molecular biology, opening the door to less invasive and more precise analyses of pathogenic microorganisms present in human host cells. This study is already published in the Electronic Edition of PNAS. http://phys.org/news256461479.html Biology Thu, 17 May 2012 08:30:01 EST news256461479 A new study offers compelling genetic evidence that head and body lice are the same species. The finding is of special interest because body lice can transmit deadly bacterial diseases, while head lice do not. http://phys.org/news253194620.html Biology Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:50:43 EST news253194620 Why is it that Mycobacterium tuberculosis can cause tuberculosis with as little as 10 cells, whereas Vibrio cholerae requires the host to ingest up to tens of millions of cells to cause cholera? This is the question that two research teams, from the Pasteur Institute, in France, and the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia and the University of Lisbon, in Portugal, answer in the latest issue of the journal PLoS Pathogens. The researchers show that bacteria that are able to invade and/or destroy cells of the host's immune system have higher infectivity, whereas those that are more motile, multiply faster and communicate with each other are less infectious, that is, it takes more bacterial cells to trigger an infection. These findings help understand the patterns that shape infectivity of bacteria, and contribute to more accurate predictions of how emerging pathogens may evolve, with implications for public health. http://phys.org/news249559498.html Biology Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:05:10 EST news249559498 A small fish may prove useful to understanding a worldwide health problem, if a Wayne State University researcher is correct. http://phys.org/news242899556.html Biology Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:06:10 EST news242899556 The carbon dioxide we exhale and the odors our skins emanate serve as crucial cues to female mosquitoes on the hunt for human hosts to bite and spread diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever. http://phys.org/news236616242.html Biology Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:44:34 EST news236616242 Toxins produced by plants and bacteria pose a significant threat to humans, as emphasized by the recent effects of cucumber-borne Shiga toxin in Germany. Now, new research published on July 21st by the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell provides a clearer view of the combination of similar and divergent strategies that different toxins use to invade a human host cell. http://phys.org/news230481826.html Biology Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:44:11 EST news230481826 A team of scientists led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) has discovered a brand new group of molecules which could help fight the spread of cancer and other diseases. http://phys.org/news189600441.html Chemistry Sun, 04 Apr 2010 13:00:11 EST news189600441 Researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have discovered that Escherichia coli bacteria harness a sophisticated chemosensory and signal transduction machinery that allows them to accurately control motor rotation, thereby adjusting their swimming velocity in response to changing environments. The research results that were published online in Cell on March 18, 2010, may foster the development of novel strategies to fight persistent infections. http://phys.org/news188209375.html Biology Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:40:01 EST news188209375 Researchers have discovered how the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas' disease, prolongs its survival in infected cells. A protein on the parasite activates the enzyme Akt, which blocks cell death signals, preventing cell destruction and parasite elimination. Chagas' disease affects some 8 to 11 million people throughout Latin America and even the United States. http://phys.org/news179502191.html Chemistry Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:45:49 EST news179502191