Single-crop farming has potential to harm bees, study finds

Mass-blooming, monoculture crop fields don't seem to reduce the microbial diversity in a bee's gut, University of Oregon researchers have found in a study of sunflower farms, but they do amplify the spread of infectious parasites.

Improving infectious disease testing with gold nanoparticles

By harnessing the power of composite polymer particles adorned with gold nanoparticles, a group of researchers have delivered a more accurate means of testing for infectious diseases. Details of their research are published ...

Biochemists discover first new antibacterial class in decades

Vanderbilt biochemists are part of a team taking a stride toward the development of antibacterials to treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections, a pervasive bacterial infection that affects 50%–60% of women in their ...

page 1 from 40

Infectious disease

An infectious disease is a clinically evident disease resulting from the presence of pathogenic microbial agents, including pathogenic viruses, pathogenic bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular parasites, and aberrant proteins known as prions. These pathogens are able to cause disease in animals and/or plants. Infectious pathologies are usually qualified as contagious diseases (also called communicable diseases) due to their potential of transmission from one person or species to another. Transmission of an infectious disease may occur through one or more of diverse pathways including physical contact with infected individuals. These infecting agents may also be transmitted through liquids, food, body fluids, contaminated objects, airborne inhalation, or through vector-borne spread.

The term infectivity describes the ability of an organism to enter, survive and multiply in the host, while the infectiousness of a disease indicates the comparative ease with which the disease is transmitted to other hosts. An infection however, is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as an infection may not cause important clinical symptoms or impair host function.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA