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Human Disease Leptospirosis Identified in the Banded Mongoose in Africa

 Scientists find widespread but neglected disease is significant health threat in Botswana

The newest public health threat in Africa, scientists have found, is coming from a previously unknown source: the banded mongoose. Leptospirosis, the disease is called. And the banded mongoose carries it. Leptospirosis is the world's most common illness transmitted to humans by animals. It's a two-phase disease that begins with flu-like symptoms. If untreated, it can cause meningitis, liver damage, pulmonary hemorrhage, renal failure and death.

 


Game as Tool for Tracking How Infectious Diseases Move Through a Population Developed by Researchers

An innovative tool for teaching the fundamentals of epidemiology, the science of how infectious diseases move through a population, has been developed by an international team of scientists. The tool is helping epidemiologists improve the mathematical models they use to study outbreaks of diseases like cholera, AIDS and malaria.

 


Time of Year Important in Projections of Climate Change Effects on Ecosystems

 

Results of study on prairie grasslands show differences across the months. Does it matter whether long periods of hot weather, such as last year's heat wave that gripped the U.S. Midwest, happen in June or July, August or September?  Scientists studying the subtle effects of heat waves and droughts say that when such weather events happen makes a big difference.

 


Lifecycle of Water in the Susquehanna River Basin May Reveal Answers for Drought Prone Areas

Water is a precious resource many take for granted until there is too little or too much. Scientists and engineers have positioned instruments at the Susquehanna Shale Hills Observatory at Pennsylvania State University to learn much more about the water cycle there. It is one of six Critical Zone Observatories in the United States.


Study of Deer Mice on California's Channel Islands Provides New Information on Hantavirus

Precipitation and predators key in ecological regulation of infectious disease: Researchers show that just three ecological factors--rainfall, predator diversity and island size and shape--can account for nearly all the differences in infection rates between the eight Channel Islands off the southern coast of California.


Study Reveals a Secret to the Success of Disease-Causing Microbes: discovery may generate new strategies to fight serious human diseases

A study published in the July 23 issue of Cell identifies the mechanism used by several types of common, virulent microbes to infect plants and cause devastating blights.


New Way to Conquer Disease-Causing Nematodes in Flies has Implications for Human Diseases

It has been a basic principle of evolution for more than a century that plants and animals can adapt genetically in ways that help them better survive and reproduce. Now, in a paper published in the journal Science, University of Rochester biologist John Jaenike and colleagues document a clear example of a new mechanism for evolution.


You Still Can't Drink the Water, But Now You Can Touch It

Engineers have developed a system that uses a simple water purification technique that can eliminate 100 percent of the microbes in New Orleans water samples left from Hurricane Katrina. The technique makes use of specialized resins, copper and hydrogen peroxide to purify tainted water.


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