The Zika virus, which is spreading like wildfire throughout the Americas and is linked to a head-shrinking birth defect called microcephaly, is just the latest in a long list of mosquito-transmitted diseases that make the insects the world’s deadliest animal. It is time to launch a global initiative to eradicate them. Read the rest at USA Today.
Tag Archives: viruses
Your Viral History in a Drop of Blood
This article was originally posted on RealClearScience.
Viruses are pernicious beasts. Some of them can sneakily hide inside the body, long after the initial infection has been cleared. For instance, varicella zoster virus (VZV), a type of herpesvirus that causes chickenpox, survives in an inactive state inside nerve cells for the remainder of a person’s life. Then, for unknown reasons, it can reactivate, causing shingles in old people or even healthy 30-year-olds. Other viruses may play a role in chronic conditions such as asthma or inflammatory bowel disease. Continue reading
A Very Strange Lemon-Shaped Virus
This article was originally posted on RealClearScience.
Viruses are among the weirdest things on the planet. Existing in a Limbo-like world somewhere between the living and the dead, viruses present undergraduate microbiologists with their very first philosophical conundrum: What is life? The question may be forever impossible to answer because even though viruses evolve — as do other bizarre creatures such as transposons and prions — they continue to defy our understanding of what it means to be “alive.” Continue reading
‘Cold Plasma’ Kills Off Norovirus
Norovirus, the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the world, can be killed with “cold plasma,” researchers in Germany have reported. The virus, which elicits vomiting and diarrhea, has gained international notoriety for causing outbreaks on cruise ships. Continue reading at BBC News.
Mom Was Right: Catching Cold in the Cold
This article was originally published on RealClearScience.
If your parents or grandparents were like mine, you probably heard this as a child heading out to play in the snow: “Put your hat and scarf on. If you don’t, you’ll catch a cold.” Years later, all grown up with a microbiology doctorate hanging on my wall, I know that viruses cause colds, not chilly weather. Their admonitions, while well-intentioned, were based on nothing but folklore and superstition. Right? Continue reading
Simmer Down: Viruses Not ‘Fourth Domain’ of Life
This article was originally posted on RealClearScience.
Biologists have categorized life into three large domains: Bacteria, Archaea (weird, bacteria-like microbes), and Eukarya (unicellular and multicellular organisms such as fungi, plants, and animals that possess nucleated cells). Under this classification system, viruses are left out in the cold. They certainly are not “alive” in the classical sense because they are not capable of metabolizing or replicating on their own. But it does not feel quite right to classify them as “inanimate,” either, because they are built of biological molecules and contain genetic information. Thus, for the most part, viruses languish in the no man’s land between the living and the dead. Continue reading
30,000-Year-Old Virus Revived, Infects Amoeba
This article was originally posted on RealClearScience.
As a general rule-of-thumb, eukaryotic cells (e.g., amoebae or human body cells) are about 1,000 times bigger than bacteria, and bacteria are about 10-100 times bigger than viruses. But in biology, there is rarely such a thing as an inviolable rule. For example, two types of giant amoeba-infecting viruses, known as Megaviridae and Pandoravirus, are so large that they are comparable to bacteria in terms of physical size and genome length.
Now, after poking around in the Siberian permafrost, a team of French and Russian scientists have reported the discovery of a third. The virus, which they named Pithovirus, resembles a mishmash of the two previously known giant viruses. And remarkably, it is 30,000 years old!
Microbial Warfare: Anthrax Assassin
A DEAD zebra in the open savannah of Namibia’s Etosha National Park would be an off-putting encounter for most people. But for Holly Ganz of the University of California, Davis and an international team of researchers, the striped ungulate’s carcass reeked of opportunity. Read the rest at The Economist.
Sit Down. We Need to Talk About Norovirus
This article was originally posted on RealClearScience.
Please, take a seat. We need to talk about norovirus. (If you have norovirus, you’ve probably already taken a seat… on the toilet.) Continue reading