Word: funguses
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...Gertrude Dhlamini's cranium etch a geography of pain. Her illness is obvious in the thin, stretched skin under which veins throb with the shingles that have blinded her left eye and scarred that side of her face. At 39, she looks 70. The agonizing thrush, a kind of fungus, that paralyzed her throat has ebbed enough to enable her to swallow a spoon or two of warm gruel, but most of the nourishment flows away in constant diarrhea. She struggles to keep her hand from scratching restlessly at the scaly rash flushing her other cheek. She is not ashamed...
Like the great sauternes, riesling is susceptible to so-called noble rot, in which the Botrytis cinerea fungus dehydrates the grapes and concentrates their juice so that they produce wines of immense richness. Germany's top-rated rieslings are all Botrytis wines to varying degrees. Most German wine qualifies as Qualitätswein (quality wine), but the better ones are deemed Qualitätswein mit Prädikat (QmP) and can be ranked (roughly) as follows...
...last the lowly fungus is starting to get some respect--and attention from pharmaceutical companies, some of which have launched major new research campaigns to fight the organisms...
However, as anyone who has wrestled with a persistent case of athlete's foot knows, it's not easy to root out a fungus once it's taken hold. Part of the problem is that fungi are complex organisms that have more in common with human cells than with bacteria or viruses; medications that are toxic to fungi are often just as toxic to humans...
...kill a fungus without harming its host? Researchers are pursuing a variety of novel approaches. One Florida-based outfit, the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, is searching for antifungal compounds in a coral-encrusted black sponge found in the Indian Ocean. Merck is expected to get FDA approval this year for a novel class of antifungals derived from Spanish soil...