Viruses, Infections & Disease, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 30, 2014

Cancer Patients Finally Get the ER They Deserve (Op-Ed)

Dr. Thomas Terndrup, chairman of emergency medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. You'll probably need emergency care at some point in your life, and while no one likes going to the emergency department, for cancer patients,...

Sep 30, 2014

Ebola Q&A: Why Virus Is a Bigger Threat to Health Care Workers

Now that two of the 100 health care workers who treated an Ebola patient in Dallas have the potentially deadly infection, health officials are trying to figure out exactly how the individuals became infected, and what is needed to prevent future infections. Ebola is not a very contagious virus in...

Sep 30, 2014

CDC Updates Its Ebola Guidelines for Health Care Workers

To better protect health care workers against the risk of contracting Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends that workers undergo rigorous training in putting on and taking off personal protection equipment, according to new guidelines announced this evening (Oct. 20). The CDC also recommended that workers...

Jul 31, 2014

How Will Chikungunya Virus Spread? DARPA Announces Challenge

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is challenging innovators to build models to predict how the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus could spread across countries in the Americas. Whoever makes the best model will take home $150,000. The chikungunya virus causes fever and debilitating joint pain, and until recently...

Jul 31, 2014

MERS Virus Doesn't Spread Easily in Households, Study Suggests

The deadly virus called Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, spreads among people within households at a lower rate than seasonal flu viruses, a new study suggests. The researchers tested the family members of 26 MERS patients, and found that only 12 of the 280 relatives living with the...

Jun 30, 2014

Could Smallpox Come Back?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now running tests on the six forgotten vials of smallpox that were recently discovered in an unsecured laboratory, to see if any live virus remains in them. The sealed vials were found in a lab at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)...

Jun 30, 2014

Risks of Flu Research Demand Openness From Labs

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The danger of reporting findings before peer review is that scientists often can’t talk about the details of their research, which can lead to hype or fear in the...

Jun 30, 2014

Stopping Deadly Ebola Outbreak Will Be a 'Marathon,' CDC Says

The deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa is not showing any signs of slowing down, prompting U.S. health officials to issue more warnings for their staff in the region, encourage U.S. doctors to collect information about sick patients' travel histories and take more actions in the affected countries to bring...

May 31, 2014

Most Oral HPV Infections Are in Men

CHICAGO — The majority of people who have infections of human papillomaviruses (HPVs) in their mouths are men, a new study suggests. The researchers looked at more than 9,000 U.S. men and women who tested positive for an oral HPV infection, and found that 78 percent of them were men....

Apr 30, 2014

Why the World Still Faces a Threat from Polio

Polio, the devastating disease that had been nearly vanquished due to widespread public health efforts to vaccinate children in recent decades, is now spreading to countries that had been polio-free. The re-emergence of polio is not a surprise to experts, because although the disease has been brought under control in...

Apr 30, 2014

3rd MERS Virus Infection in US Reported in Illinois Man

A man in Illinois is the third person in the U.S. now confirmed to have been infected with the relatively new and deadly virus known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today (May 17). The man is reported to be feeling well,...

Dec 31, 2013

Genome of the Blood-Sucking Hookworm Decoded

Scientists have decoded the genome of a lowly, blood-sucking hookworm, an advance they say could lead to cures for hookworm infection, a painful condition afflicting more than 700 million people worldwide, mostly in underdeveloped countries. But the worm's unique relationship with the human immune system means the new findings may...

Dec 31, 2013

If You Don't Like People Tweeting About Cancer, Don't Read It (Op-Ed)

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. If there is a set of rules about coping with cancer, I have never seen it. Perhaps in some circles a commonly accepted method exists. If so, I remain in...

Dec 31, 2013

Devastating Plague Strains Arose Twice, Could Return

Many centuries before the Black Death wiped out a third to half of Europe, an equally virulent pandemic called the Plague of Justinian killed upwards of 100 million people in just two short years between 541 and 543 A.D. Scientists have long debated the connection between what have been called...

Dec 31, 2013

Numbers That Become Memes Can Be Dangerous to Society (Op-Ed)

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Some numbers are both memorable and incorrect. Take the idea that we only use 10% of our brains. Despite there being no medical evidence for the remarkably low percentage, many...