Infectious Diseases

Future Tech: Doctor on-Call? Cell-Phone Cameras Can Diagnose Disease

Developing nations often have a lack of medical facilities but good cell phones. The CellScope turns the latter into the former. 10.20.2009

How Invaders Break Through the Brain's Great Wall

Some bacteria pierce the imposing blood-brain barrier by breaking links in the chain; sneakier ones do it by fooling the guard cells. 10.15.2009

Numbers: Microbes, From the Tiny Genome to the 70 Trillion in Your Body

10.15.2009

The Big Idea That Might Beat Cancer and Cut Health-Care Costs by 80 Percent

Paul Ewald says infections are responsible for at least four-fifths of all cancers—and we have the tools to prevent them. 09.30.2009

Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic?

Former CDC director Jeff Koplan says preparedness is a relative thing. 09.11.2009

The Evolution of Swine Flu

Michael Worobey and other evolutionary biologists worked around the clock this spring to analyze the genetics of swine flu. 09.11.2009

Swine Flu Was a Warning Shot. How Can We Do Better Against the Next Pandemic?

This spring we were caught with our public-health pants down. Preparing for the next big threat will be difficult but not impossible. 08.25.2009

Cool Killers: The Beauty of Deadly Pathogens

From swine flu to Ebola, you’ve never seen infectious agents quite like these. 06.11.2009

A Nearly Perfect Bloodsucker: The Tick

The tick's salivary proteins change daily, so if a victim produces antibodies against today's saliva, they're useless a few days later. 06.09.2009

The Five Worst Government Responses to Swine Flu

From Cuba to Japan, countries are busy bungling their reactions to the outbreak. 04.30.2009

Vital Signs: Fishy Food

A tropical vacation goes south when a tourist catches something horrible from the catch of the day. But what exactly is it? 04.28.2009

Promising Antibiotic Could Spawn the Next Superbug

Bacteria-killing viruses called bacteriophages can speed up pathogen evolution by a billion years. 03.28.2009

The New Theory About Why Animals Sleep: to Maintain the Immune System

New study shows that mammals that sleep more have more immune cells and fewer parasites. 03.22.2009

Is Patriotism a Subconscious Way for Humans to Avoid Disease?

We're not very aware of the “behavioral immune system,” but it may push us toward life-saving behaviors. 02.18.2009

When Modern Medicine Battles Genetics... and Loses

Despite the best care, a patient succumbs to a genetically predisposed disease. 01.14.2009

#14: All Flus Lead to Asia

The Far East is the incubator of every strain—and the key to treating the disease. 12.20.2008

#19: Salmonella Outbreak Shines Light on Food Safety

Two deaths and countless dollars later, the chinks in the food system are exposed. 12.19.2008

#32: DNA Sleuthing Cracks the Anthrax Case

Microbial forensics seems to have solved an infamous whodunnit. 12.16.2008

#33: The First Known Case of Virus-Attacks-Virus

Sputnik virus seems to have influenced evolution of the Mamavirus. 12.16.2008

#34: Anti-Malaria Gene Boosts HIV Vulnerability

An adaptation against tropical disease makes people of African descent more prone to AIDS. 12.16.2008

#54: An “Elite” Immune System Can Prevent AIDS

A select few infected with HIV never become ill. 12.12.2008

#82: The New Immune System Weapon: A DNA Catapult in Your Gut

Triggered by harmful bacteria, cells fling killer webs of DNA to ensnare the intruder. 12.08.2008

10 Studies That Revealed the Great Global Amphibian Die-Off—and Some Possible Solutions

In our planet's sixth great mass extinction event, amphibians are among the hardest hit. 11.04.2008

Where Will the Next Pandemic Emerge?

The next killer germ could burst from the African rain forest—or from your family pet. 10.27.2008

Twenty-Nine, Male, and Dangerously Ill

A young man with fevers and groin pain leads E.R. doctors on a race to find the cause. 10.23.2008

What Invisible Things Are in the Surfaces You Touch and Air You Breathe?

A DISCOVER editor delves into the unseen forces that affect our lives. 08.29.2008

Battling the Worms Inside You

An infectious disease specialist must tackle her patient's parasites head-on. 08.22.2008

10 Ways Genetically Engineered Microbes Could Help Humanity

Fighting cancer, producing renewable fuels, and making your clothing glow in the dark. 08.06.2008

Zombie Animals and the Parasites that Control Them

Parasitic wasps, worms, and other creepy-crawlies that take over the minds of their hosts. 08.04.2008

Have We Finally Found an Effective Defense Against Lyme Disease?

A new treatment may block transmission 85 percent of the time. 07.09.2008

What is This? Video Game Soccer Balls?

Not quite, but you will find plenty in a locker room. 07.03.2008

5 Next-Gen Antibiotics That Could Save Your Life

Powerful peptides from alligator blood; synthetic peptoids from the lab. 06.30.2008

Sliced: The Deadliest Animal

Mosquitoes kill 2 million people per year. Do they have any vulnerabilities? 06.10.2008

Zapping HIV With Lasers

Lasers set to the right frequency may effectively knock out the virus. 06.10.2008

The White Urine That Held the Key

A housewife's unusual bathroom trips lead her doctor to diagnose a rare tropical disease. 05.22.2008

The Wonderful World of E. Coli

Carl Zimmer looks inside the dangers—and wonders—of one remarkable bacterium. 05.09.2008

How Do Transplant Patients Wind Up with Killer Organs?

Transplants occasionally bring lethal diseases like AIDS and cancer. 04.17.2008

Go to the Fridge and Fix Yourself a Superbug Sandwich

Canadian pork imports may be laced with antibiotic-resistant Staph. 03.28.2008

Finally! A Nearly Foolproof Circumcision.

Ingenious new device means lower HIV rates, safer penises. 03.24.2008

How the Heck Did a Woman Become Fused to a Toilet Seat?

(Hard bones + soft tissue) x one month of immobility = extremely bad news 03.14.2008

Whatever Happened To... Avian Flu?

“We are going to have another pandemic. It will occur.” 03.04.2008

DNA Pollution May Be Spawning Killer Microbes

Rogue genetic snippets spread antibiotic resistance all over the environment. 02.14.2008

Deadly Microbes From Outer Space

Get ready for diarrhea that's out of this world. 02.01.2008

46. E. coli Outbreak Prompts Massive Meat Recall

01.04.2008

44. Ebola Outbreak In Congo Downsized

01.04.2008

Whatever Happened To... Smallpox?

Humanity stomps nature but is still vulnerable to humanity. 12.24.2007

26. Controversy Over Cervical Cancer Vaccine

12.21.2007

The Freeing of the Tripoli Six

The inside story of how scientists saved medical workers from the firing squad. 11.26.2007

Teflon-ized Frog Chemical Could Save You from Disease

The nonstick pan coating cooks up a mean antibiotic. 09.14.2007

Perdue Too Chicken to Quit Antibiotics Cold Turkey

Antibiotic use on the farm hurts people—and doesn’t help the bottom line. 09.12.2007

A Yogurt a Day Keeps the Runs Away

Good bacteria help set straight an ailing gut. 08.23.2007

20 Things you Didn't Know About... Hygiene

Cleanliness is serious business; dirty hands killed a U.S. president. 08.20.2007

Fetus Fight Club

The first proof that babies are born ready to repel infections 08.16.2007

Vital Signs: The Great Outdoors Bites Back

Go breathe in the fresh air, but be selective about it. 08.07.2007

Harmful Herpes, Helpful Herpes

Viruses can protect you from bacterial diseases. 07.27.2007

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Mosquitoes

They use the signature buzz as a mating call. 07.23.2007

Health Trends: Contagious and Selfish

Andrew Speaker could have been a modern-day Typhoid Mary. 06.29.2007

Your Body Is a Planet

90% of the cells within us are not ours but microbes'. 06.19.2007

Map: High School Hookups

Teens make life easy for STDs. 06.18.2007

Why Is the HPV Vaccine So Expensive?

Good for the cervix, rough on the pocketbook 06.11.2007

How We Got the Controversial HPV Vaccine

It took more than 30 years—and mice grafted with infected human foreskins. 05.17.2007

Tiny Troublemaker, Giant Genome

A one-celled vaginal parasite sports more genes than its human host. 05.08.2007

Toxic Salad

What are fecal bacteria doing on our leafy greens? 04.18.2007

Blinded by Science: Addicted to Beef

In the face of mad cow disease, why did the British keep eating their beef? 04.12.2007

Caught in the Hot Zone

Ebola drives gorillas toward extinction. 04.09.2007

Cold Sores? What Cold Sores?

The strange link between herpes and memory 04.06.2007

Why We Get Fevers

How heat helps your immune system fight infections 03.25.2007

Natural Selections: Prairie Dogs of Death

Jungle viruses hitch a ride into the U.S. via exotic pets. 03.09.2007

No More Laundry

Technologists invent self-sterilizing textiles. 02.25.2007

Phoenix Rising

Geneticists bring back a virus from its grave—human DNA. 02.25.2007

Vital Signs: Bugs Are Crawling In My Skin

Skin eruptions mystify both doctor and patient. 11.20.2006

Did Cows Kill Keats?

Cows may have brought tuberculosis to North America long before Europeans arrived. 11.15.2006

Peer Review: Sharing Our Urban Organisms

A new book contends that urban density makes eco-sense. 11.01.2006

Natural Selections: The Potential Pandemic You've Never Heard Of

How the connections between pigs, bats, and people could threaten your health. 09.25.2006

Why We Get Diseases Other Primates Don't

New research might explain why HIV kills only humans. 09.01.2006

Five Lessons From Avian Flu

Work, Watch, Wait, Worry, and Wonder 06.25.2006

Vital Signs: Can She Survive The Cure?

A dread old disease tests a modern gynecologist. 06.14.2006

Flu Spread Follows Finances

A theoretical physicist uses dollars to track bird flu. 04.21.2006

Supercomputer vs Superflu

Statisticians simulate an avian flu outbreak. 04.10.2006

Unintelligent Design

A monstrous discovery suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth 03.15.2006

Megadeath in Mexico

Epidemics followed the Spanish arrival in the New World, but the worst killer may have been a shadowy native—a killer that could still be out there. 02.21.2006

The Science of Avian Flu

Answers to frequently asked questions 02.20.2006

Who Gets the Flu?

Genetics increases susceptibility. 01.31.2006

The Year in Science: Epidemiology

Problems with the new flu vaccine, and the American robin harbors the West Nile virus. 01.08.2006

Vital Signs: Struggling to Inhale

The same symptoms for an infant and an older man have separate causes and different consequences 12.01.2005

Genomics

Researchers focus on differences between groups to find bad DNA 10.24.2005

The race is on to develop medicines faster and keep ahead of bacteria and viruses. 10.24.2005

Are Antibiotics Killing Us?

For every cell in your body, you support 10 mostly beneficial bacterial cells. 10.19.2005

Bite of the Hobo Spider

Is it arachnophobia or are people dying? 09.08.2005

Vital Signs

Appendicitis? Or something else? 07.24.2005

Vital Signs

A swollen area grows larger and larger 06.05.2005

Vital Signs

The cause of a teenage athlete's fever and pain takes a doctor by surprise 02.06.2005

Worrying About Killer Flu

Asia is brewing a deadly virus, but only with the right ingredients can it morph into an epidemic 02.06.2005

69: Prionlike Proteins Help Form Memories

01.03.2005

70: New Strains of Mad Cow Materialize

01.03.2005

96: Report: Syphilis Killed Lenin

01.03.2005

32: These Parasites Really Get Under Your Skin

01.03.2005

24: Polio Resurfaces In West Africa

01.03.2005

5: Killer Flu Incubates in Asia

01.03.2005

The Antibiotic Fox in the Henhouse

08.02.2004

Forbidden Science

What can studies of pornography, prostitutes, and seedy truck stops contribute to society? 08.02.2004

Are Animal Viruses Even More Dangerous Than We Thought?

05.29.2004

Vital Signs

A young athlete stumbles around the emergency room like an old man 05.29.2004

Did West Nile Kill Alexander the Great?

03.28.2004

Vital Signs

A young man in perfect health lies paralyzed by an unknown pathogen 12.03.2003

The Greatest Unanswered Questions of Medical Science

Where the money and brainpower will go in the next decade 12.03.2003

The Virus, the Manatee, and the Biologist

For once, saving an endangered species could save us too 08.01.2003

Discover Dialogue: Virologist David Baltimore

The danger of getting sick from this disease in the United States is trivial 08.01.2003

Vital Signs

An unfamiliar pathogen attacks unsuspecting passengers on a jetliner 07.01.2003

How Nature Brews a New Strain of Flu

07.01.2003

Vital Signs

I could tell from the infant's unusually high-pitched cry and disturbed vision that he needed immediate attention and treatment to survive 04.01.2003

Vital Signs

Did this writhing, choking child really have to die? 03.01.2003

Vital Signs

Why can't this baby hold down her formula? 12.01.2002

Curb your Cat, Save a Sea Otter

10.01.2002

Vital Signs

A sore marks the telltale path of a troublesome parasite 09.01.2002

Vital Signs

It wasn't pregnancy and it wasn't cancer. What was it? 07.01.2002

Vital Signs: Tropical Nightmare

A fearsome infection spoils perfect honeymoon. 06.01.2002

An Artificial Eye on Bioterror

06.01.2002

Vital Signs

The disease that shows us how we are what we eat 05.01.2002

Vital Signs

A legendary but surprisingly docile pathogen takes hold in a young man 02.01.2002

Vital Signs

Yet another mysterious disease that masquerades as the flu 01.01.2002

Public Health Coordinator Donald Henderson Waging War on Bioterror

01.01.2002

Will the Black Death Return?

Antibiotic-resistant plague is alive and well. 11.01.2001

Vital Signs

A simple excursion brings home a sleeping giant 10.01.2001

One Tough Tree

(Or, How I Got Siberian Elm Disease) 09.01.2001

Vital Signs

Our intestines do a lot of work without complaint. When they do complain, what does it mean? 09.01.2001

By the Numbers: Taming Sex Diseases

09.01.2001

Cow Parts

Mad cow disease could wreak havoc in the US because nearly everything we taste has cow in it. 08.01.2001

Works in Progress

Chemists concoct a bait more tantalizing than human flesh 08.01.2001

Microbiologis? Joan Rose Don't Catch a Dirty Wave

08.01.2001

Vital Signs

Sick kids show up in the ER every day-but they're rarely this sick 06.01.2001

Making a New Mosquito

Will tinkering make mosquitoes better or worse? 05.01.2001

Vital Signs

Headache, fever, and vomiting-a simple viral infection, right? 05.01.2001

Byron Caughey A Sane Look at Mad Cows

03.01.2001

Vital Signs

A teenager's stomachache proves a diagnostic puzzle—and a cautionary tale 02.01.2001

Vital Signs

Mr. Post's escalating fever after a monthlong trip into the bush was not a good sign 10.01.2000

Silent Summer

This summer, many more Americans may have to choose between getting exposed to West Nile encephalitis or getting sprayed with a mild neurotoxin. Maybe they should just stay indoors. 07.01.2000

Vital Signs

Are you psychotic, overdosing, or did you just forget your booster shot? 01.01.2000

The Biology of ... Hand-Washing

Your Mother Was Right: In an age when antibiotics don't kill germs very well, soap does 12.01.1999

Taking It on the Jaw

A neglected tooth infection runs amok and threatens to choke off a young inmate's throat 10.01.1999

Killer Pox in the Congo

The last documented case of smallpox occurred in 1977. Now a deadly kin of the virus is spreading out of the forest and into villages. 10.01.1999

Vital Signs

A neglected tooth infection runs amok and threatens to choke off a young inmate's throat 10.01.1999

Killer Pox in the Congo

The last documented case of smallpox occurred in 1977. Now a deadly kin of the virus is spreading out of the forest and into villages. by Wendy Orent 10.01.1999

Mysterious Fevers

Mr. Ervin didn't know what hit him, and neither did his doctor 07.01.1999

Vital Signs

Mr. Ervin didn't know what hit him, and neither did his doctor 07.01.1999

The Cold Warriors

Closing in on a cure for the common cold. 02.01.1999

The Cold Warriors

Closing in on a cure for the common cold. 02.01.1999

Last Days of the Wonder Drugs

Years of overconfidence have made us vulnerable. Now, in the deadly arms race between people and bacteria, the bugs are winning. 11.01.1998

The Baby Who Stopped Eating

Infants don't suddenly stop nursing and starve themselves. What was happening to Jarret Fox? 08.01.1998

Vital Signs: A Lethal Scratch

Mrs. Anders didn't seem sick. But the fiery streak up her ankle was a poisonous calling card. 02.01.1998

The Year in Science: Animals 1997

A Plague on Frogs 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Animals 1997

A Plague on Frogs 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Environment 1997

Not a Pretty Picture 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Medicine 1997

Fear the Pigs 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Medicine 1997

Where's the Beef? 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Medicine 1997

Case Closed 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Plants 1997

Keep the Aspirin Flying 01.01.1998

Borna virus used to be an obscure veterinary problem in Saxony. But it's obscure no more. A couple of German virologists believe the bug may be sending people, in large numbers, to the psychiatric ward. 10.01.1997

On the Origin of Darwin's Ills

09.01.1997

Malign Evolution

In 1911 a hen's tumor prompted a 70-year search for cancer-causing viruses. What it ultimately revealed were the rules of a Darwinian game, played to the death. 08.01.1997

Mysteries of the Heart

No one knows why a puzzling growth sometimes chokes off the blood vessels that embrace the heart, or who is most susceptible to it. But a seemingly harmless--and nearly ubiquitous--virus may provide a valuable clue. 07.01.1997

The Sweating Sickness Returns

06.01.1997

The Importance of Being Infected

05.01.1997

Sporting With Disaster

05.01.1997

The Poop on Penguins

03.01.1997

The Floating Zoo

The air teems with viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other microscopic creatures. They can cross oceans on a gust of wind. Some can cause crop failures, disease, and death. Some can be used as invisible weapons, and we know next to nothing about them. 02.01.1997

Science News

Health & Medicine / Infectious Diseases