Researchers have identified four new genetic variants associated with an increased risk of testicular cancer, supporting the notion that testicular cancer is a disorder of germ cell development and maturation. Philadelphia — A new study looking at the genomes of more than 13,000 men identified four new genetic variants associated with an increased risk of [...]

A newly published study pokes holes in widely accepted theory that connects biodiversity abundance with a reduced disease risk for humans, finding that the links between biodiversity and disease prevalence are variable and dependent on the disease system, local ecology and probably human social context. More than three quarters of new, emerging or re-emerging human [...]

A new study from scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that vitamin D could protect against type 1 diabetes. Adequate levels of vitamin D during young adulthood may reduce the risk of adult-onset type 1 diabetes by as much as 50 percent, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health [...]

Similar to Lyme disease, a new tick-borne infection known as Borrelia miyamotoi has been discovered in people in the United States. A new tick-borne infection that shares many similarities with Lyme disease has been discovered in 18 patients in southern New England and neighboring New York by researchers at the Yale Schools of Public Health [...]

In Pakistan, nine health workers were killed last year. They were administering the polio vaccine, which has been cast by the Taliban as a plot against Islam. This is because the CIA used vaccination programs to get close to Osama bin Laden. Pakistan is one of three countries where the transmission of the virus has [...]

The most common STIs in the USA, chlamydia and gonorrhea, are usually easy to eradicate thanks to doses of oral antibiotics, but now gonorrhea is getting more resistant to first line defense drugs. The scientists published their findings in The Journal of the American Medical Association¹. There are more than 321,000 cases of gonorrhea reported [...]

The FDA is warning that there is a possibility of health care-related infections caused by the antiseptics, which are supposed to prevent infections, used to disinfect skin before health care procedures. In the New England Journal of Medicine¹, Drs. Christina Y. Chang and Lesley-Anne Furlong of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research explain [...]

Researchers have discovered a potent antibody in panda blood, which could help fight increasingly prevalent drug-resistant strains of infections. Cathelicin-AM was discovered when researchers analyzed the DNA of pandas. It can kill fungi and bacteria. Scientists think that the antibiotic is released to protect the animals from infections in the wild. In studies, it was [...]

Back in 2005, doctors at a remote hospital in the village of Tugela Ferry, South Africa, were puzzled when patients with HIV, who were initially responding well to antiretroviral drugs, began rapidly dying from tuberculosis. When patients contract ordinary TB, they start to feel better after a few weeks or months on a selection of [...]

After a high-level meeting this week, work on the avian influenza H5N1 virus will probably continue by people who are not NIH funded. This is in the wake of a global debate about the risks and benefits of such research and a voluntary moratorium on the experiments lasting nearly a year. Experts met on Monday [...]

According to a new study, cutting unclean fruits and vegetables can spread viruses to the knife. Scienitists already knew that bacteria could contaminate utensils this way, but this is the first study to see if the hepatitis A virus and norovirus can be transmitted this way. The scientists published their findings in the journal Food [...]

The novel coronavirus which was discovered this summer in the Middle East might infect more than just human patients. The pathogen is closely related to SARS, and it may also be able to infect pigs and a wide range of bat species. The scientists published their findings in the journal mBio. The findings might help [...]