6,281 results
6,281 results for: Virus
- Health & Medicine
Pre-chewed baby food can spread HIV
An age-old cultural practice may offer new dangers in the era of AIDS.
- Humans
Flu: Grim stats
Though risk of death from conventional flu strains escalates dramatically, beginning around age 45, a new study finds that masks do a fair job of slowing the infection's transmission.
- Agriculture
Of swine flu, pigs and a state fair
To date, federal monitoring has yet to turn up any U.S. pigs infected with the killer swine flu strain known as H1N1. But Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack announced yesterday that his agency’s veterinary labs would be reexamining whether any of the apparently healthy pigs exhibited last August 16 to Sept. 1 at the Minnesota state fair might have been infected with the virus. Why? “An outbreak of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza occurred in a group of children housed in a dormitory at the fair at the same time samples were collected from the pigs,” USDA notes
- Health & Medicine
Mice: seasonal flu vaccine and vulnerability to pandemic strain
Earlier this year, Dutch scientists showed that vaccinating mice against seasonal strains of flu rendered the animals unnecessarily vulnerable to dying if they later encountered a pandemic flu strain. Authors of this study now ask whether there are lessons in their data for parents. Such as whether to ignore recommendations that youngsters get seasonal-flu shots during years when pandemic flu is raging. Others suggest this idea, at least as regards people, is bunk.
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From the infectious diseases meeting: What’s with the vaccine-o-phobia?
Science News writer Nathan Seppa talks with physicians about people opting out of vaccinations.
- Health & Medicine
H1N1: Call to revise flu-mask policy
Three groups of healthcare professionals sent a letter to President Obama yesterday asking that he instruct his administration to revise federal flu-mask guidance. What these groups want: formal recognition that two studies last month showed conventional surgical masks are about as protective as the fancy — but much more expensive — N95 respirators in limiting H1N1 infection.
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No one villain behind honey-bee colony collapse
Many factors may interact to bring on the mysterious honey-bee colony collapse disorder.
- Science & Society
Science literacy: U.S. college courses really count
Over the past two decades, science literacy in the United States – an estimate of the share of adults who can follow complex science issues and maybe even render an informed opinion on them – has nearly tripled. But – and it’s a big but -- the proportion of people who fall into this category remains small. Just 28 percent.
- Health & Medicine
One of H1N1’s mysteries explained
The current H1N1 influenza shares many similarities with the 1918 pandemic influenza.
- Earth
Hazy antidote to a faint young sun
A new theory suggests atmospheric answer to the continuing paradox of why early Earth wasn’t icy.
- Agriculture
Germs eyed to make foods safer
Adding viruses to foods doesn’t sound appetizing, much less healthy. But it’s a stratagem being explored to knock some of the more virulent food poisoning bacteria out of the U.S. food supply. Scientists described data supporting the tactic July 18 at the Institute of Food Technologists’ annual meeting in Chicago.
- Health & Medicine
Beneficial bacteria may protect babies from HIV
No one argues that when it comes to feeding baby, mom’s milk is best. But mothers infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, face a dilemma: Because some of their virus can be shed in breast milk, babies risk becoming infected as they drink it. Two research teams are now investigating a germ-warfare strategy to treat such vulnerable infants.
