Emerging Disease and Zoonoses series

As the world is now painfully aware, pigs can act as reservoirs for viruses that have the potential to jump into humans, triggering mass epidemics. Influenza is one such virus, but a group of Texan scientists have found another example in domestic Philippine pigs, and its one that's simultaneously…

Fruit Bats Found to be Infected with Deadly Marburg Virus

tags: researchblogging.org, Egyptian Rousette, Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus, Marburg hemorrhagic fever virus, Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus, Uganda, zoonoses, pathogen Portrait of an Egyptian Rousette or Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus. Image: Wikipedia Like something out…

Some (Relatively) Good News About Piggies and Resistant Bacteria

Yesterday, I posted about how feral pigs might be responsible for the spinach-associated E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. A while back, I described the epidemic spread of a new strain of MRSA throughout pigs in Europe. What was puzzling to me was why this MRSA strain, found at forty to sixty-fold…

MRSA in pigs and pig farmers

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is very difficult to kill. This notorious "superbug" can withstand a broad and growing range of antibiotics, and is the leading cause of hospital infections in many countries. But it's not restricted to hospitals. According to studies coming in…

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Movin'...

October 18, 2017

As several others have already noted, after almost 12 years, Scienceblogs is shutting down at month's end. Though I've done most of my writing elsewhere over the last few years, I'd certainly like to keep the archives of this blog up somewhere, and maintain it as a place to post random musings that…

The high cost of academic reimbursement

September 29, 2017

Spring, 2004. I was in the second year of my post-doc, with kids ages 4 and 2. Because I was no longer a student, the full brunt of my student loan payments had hit me, which were collectively almost double the cost of my mortgage. To put it generously, money was tight. Truthfully, we were broke as…

Vaccine advocacy 101

July 26, 2017

I recently finished a 2-year stint as an American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturer. It's an excellent program--ASM pays all travel expenses for lecturers, who speak at ASM Branch meetings throughout the country. I was able to attend Branch meetings from California and Washington in…

Is there such a thing as an "evolution-proof" drug? (part the third)

May 31, 2017

A claim that scientists need to quit making: I've written about these types of claims before. The first one--a claim that antimicrobial peptides were essentially "resistance proof," was proven to be embarrassingly wrong in a laboratory test. Resistance not only evolved, but it evolved…

HIV's "Patient Zero" was exonerated long ago

October 27, 2016

The news over the past 24 hours has exclaimed over and over: HIV's Patient Zero Exonerated How scientists proved the wrong man was blamed for bringing HIV to the U.S. Researchers Clear "Patient Zero" from AIDS Origin Story H.I.V. Arrived in the U.S. Long Before ‘Patient Zero’ Gaetan Dugas: "patient…

Emerging Disease and Zoonoses series

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