Microbes

Health & Medicine

Explainer: What is Ebola?

A virus is behind the hemorrhage-inducing infection called Ebola. It causes fevers and often intense bleeding — seemingly from anywhere and everywhere.

Microbes

Buried Antarctic lake teems with life

Last year, scientists drilled 800 meters (roughly a half mile) down through ice to reach a pitch-black Antarctic lake. They now report that lake hosts a thriving community of one-celled microbes.

Animals

Germs explain some animal behaviors

The bacteria that people and other animals host in and on their bodies are invisible to the eye. Yet they can play a very visible role in behavior. It’s something scientists are just coming to appreciate.

Environment

Watering plants with wastewater can spread germs

Recycled waste water may slake the thirst of outdoor plants. But it also can spread bacteria, a new study finds — germs that antibiotics may not be able to kill.

Microbes

Record Ebola epidemic strikes

A record outbreak of the deadly disease has already claimed nearly 1,000 lives in West Africa. Scientists suspect bats or eating some other wild animals may have triggered the epidemic.

Health & Medicine

Clay: A new way to fight germs?

Geologists have discovered a type of volcanic clay that shows promise in fighting infections — maybe even ones resistant to antibiotic medicines.

Microbes

The Bahamas’ African roots

Ocean bacteria may have built the Bahama islands, fed by dust blown across the Atlantic from the Sahara Desert.

Microbes

The war on superbugs

Doctors and scientists are exploring ways to stem the growing global crisis of antibacterial resistance.

Microbes

Explainer: What you can do to fight antibiotic resistance

Doctors and scientists are not the only people who can help preserve the effectiveness of life-saving antibiotics. Even patients have a role to play, as these tips show.

Microbes

The HIV cure — that wasn’t

Immediate and aggressive drug treatment of a baby born with HIV appeared to have cured the girl. In fact, a follow-up shows, she still has the disease.

Microbes

Superbugs: A silent health emergency

Have antibiotics become too popular? Overusing these medicines fuels resistant germs that pose a global health threat.

Microbes

Explainer: Where antibiotics came from

A mold proved the source of the first known antibiotic: penicillin. But chemical dyes would lead to the first antibiotics used in treating people.