Word: bacteria
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...when newly antibiotic resistant bacteria have resurrected diseases previously thought to have been eradicated or at least controlled, this is an alarming prospect. Imagine one of those bacteria in your gut happens to be strep or staph or tuberculosis—something nasty, but controllable with standard antibiotics. Now imagine that they pick up a plasmid from a genetically modified piece of corn. What happens? The antibiotics don’t work any more. At this point it might be worth buying some life insurance and making sure your will is in order...
...Valleys, albeit life that is primitive in form and exceedingly cryptic. Minuscule roundworms called nematodes and insects known as springtails constitute what biologists jokingly call the "lions and tigers of the soil." The top of the aquatic food chain is occupied by single-cell protozoa that feed on bacteria...
...more than six weeks a year, and so arid that what little snow falls turns to vapor almost overnight. Scientists recently reported, however, that sequestered in the 60 ft. of ice that covers one of the largest Dry Valleys lakes, Lake Vida, are dormant but still viable bacteria that have been sealed off from the outside world for some 3,000 years...
...very cautious because we don't want to raise any false hopes," Lee says, "but certainly the results from the study were encouraging." Cancer treatment is only one of thalidomide's promising uses. Since 1964 the drug has been the standard treatment for leprosy. Thalidomide does not kill the bacteria that cause leprosy, but it does change the body's immunological and inflammatory response to those bacteria - which is why researchers are investigating its potential uses in autoimmune disorders like HIV, Behçet's disease and Crohn's disease. This time around researchers are taking stringent precautions against...
...used together with vaccines, could reduce the number of doses, induce immunity more quickly and prolong protection. The Pasteur Institute is working on its own approach to improving anthrax vaccines. The new French treatment could provide better protection because in addition to neutralizing toxins, it can stop bacteria from multiplying at the early stages of disease, according to Michèle Mock, team leader on the Institute's anthrax vaccine project. The current anthrax vaccine only neutralizes toxins. The same is true for a vaccine against tularemia, or rabbit fever, a bacterium that can cause fatal illness. With funding from...