 Your new post is loading...
 Your new post is loading...
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
WebMD shows you cold symptoms and signs of flu virus. Learn what fever, cough, runny nose, and sore throat may mean, and treatment and prevention options. I have a morbid fascination with this just now, having had sinusitis, rhinitis, headache AND fever. Damn viruses....
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
...we find that Ded1p and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), which is another host factor for TBSV, play non-overlapping functions to enhance (+)-strand synthesis. ... two small RNA viruses, which do not code for their own helicases, seems to recruit a host RNA helicase to aid their replication in infected cells. Both ss(-)RNA and ss(+)RNA viruses need to bias their replication machinery towards over-production of the genomic strand - and this paper goes a long way to explaining how that happens for two unrelated ss(+)RNA viruses infecting very different hosts.
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Propitious Prions |...The poor cousins of viruses come out of the shadows - and turn out to be actually useful! For yeasts, anyway. Epigenetics and Lamarckian evolution becoming respectable at last?
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
A knowledge resource to understand virus diversity...Ranavirus, in this case. A good general resource: ViralZone Current statistics January, 2012 426 Virus description pages: 83 Families 334 Genera 9 individual Species Linking to: 364 reference strains 16,010 manually reviewed proteins1, 290,680 unreviewed viral proteins
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Maize streak virus -strain A (MSV-A; Genus Mastrevirus, Family Geminiviridae), the maize-adapted strain of MSV that causes maize streak disease throughout sub-Saharan Africa, probably arose between 100 and 200 years ago via homologous recombination... Sometimes you have to be proud of your academic children...B-) Picture courtesy Russell Kightley Media
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
A virus responsible for [the majority of] cervical cancer[s] might also raise a woman's risk of heart attack and stroke, according to researchers who suggest HPV might underlie some cardiovascular diseasein people who do not have such traditional risk factors as obesity, diabetes or smoking. Interesting! Even more reason to vaccinate young people
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Nguyen Tran Hien: www.ianphi.orgVietnam may begin producing bird flu vaccines for humans next year, according to the National Institute of Hygiene ... Developing countries: doing it for themselves. Because no-one else will.
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Well, not really an RNA virus, given that it has a DNA stage to the lifecycle - but possibly the smallest virus genome known to make miRNAs?
Thanks AJC!
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Scientists from the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital and Antwerp University have tested a new 'therapeutic vaccine' against HIV on volunteers. The next wave of HIV vaccines: we have so many HIV-infected people alive because of ARVs, that other interventions are starting to be seriously trialled.
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
A pretty reasonable overview of the pros and cons of vaccinating children - which manages to be mostly pro. As it should be.
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Carl Zimmer reviews Frank Ryan's Virolution: The Most Important Evolutionary Book Since Dawkins' Selfish Gene. "We are part virus. This bizarre yet inescapable fact has been revealed over the past 30 years, as scientists have spelunked their way through the human genome and encountered stretches of DNA with the telltale chemical signatures of viruses." I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
|
Suggested by
Kerry Gordon
|
A Planet of Viruses | If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.In 2000, a team of Boston scientists discovered a peculiar gene in the human genome. Thanks Kerry!
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
In its effort to eradicate the deadly Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) in animals by 2030, India has joined hands with the US to jointly develop a new-age single-shot vaccine. ...the new recombinant clone adenovirus virus base vaccine will be sturdier, require less cold storage and be more effective than the present vaccine.
|
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Experts have delayed a decision about whether controversial research into the H5N1 bird flu virus should be published. And do it grinds on...meanwhile, so does the virus
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
The nervous system has evolved rather complicated barriers that facilitate access to nutrients and contact with the outside world, but block entry of pathogens and toxins [1]. However, when these barriers are reduced for any number of reasons, nervous system infections are possible. When they occur, they can be devastating and, even with good antiviral drugs, difficult to manage. EXCELLENT review of a very interesting topic. Edited by Vincent Racaniello, who obviously has more than one job B-)
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
"Opinion: What Is Life?|...What should the definition contain, to be suitable for all varieties of observable life? Humans, animals, plants, microorganisms. Do viruses also belong to life?" I used to boggle students' minds with this one. Or thought I did - maybe they didn't care?? However, one Honours student (who must have been smart; he dropped out and is now a rabbi) gave me this beautiful definition: "Life is a series of eddies in the entropic flow - and viruses are smaller eddies within those swirls".
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
WASHINGTON -- What can you do to help stop a ravaging virus from spreading farther in Maryland's turtle population? Told you we'd do "other things". I quite like turtles.
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Who DID show that influenza was a virus?
The history books will tell you that it was only in 1933 that Influenza A virus was shown to BE a virus - yet there appears to me to be very clear evidence that French scientists working in 1918 actually made the first call. From "Quelques notions experimentales sur le virus de la grippe", by MM Charles Nicolle and Charles Lebailly in Annales de l'Institut Pasteur of 1918: Conclusions 1⁰ The bronchial expectoration of people suffering from influenza, collected during the acute period, is virulent. 2⁰ The monkey (M. cynomolgus) is sensitive to the virus by sub-conjunctival and nasal inoculation. 3⁰ The influenza agent is a filterable organism. The inoculation of the filtrate has indeed reproduced the illness in two of the people injected subcutaneously; on the other hand when given intravenously it appears to be ineffective (two failures out of two tries). 4⁰ It is possible that the flu virus does not occur in the patient’s blood. The blood of a monkey with flu, inoculated subcutaneously, did not infect man; the negative blood result of subject 2 at D, is however, not convincing, the blood route seeming to be ineffective for the flu virus transmission. (Translated by Mrs Francoise Williamson) It convinced me. But, as my medical colleagues will be quick to tell you, I'm an amateur in this area. Albeit an enthusiastic one...B-) Picture courtesy of Russell Kightley Media
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Amazon.com: The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History: John M. Barry Greatest outbreak, maybe, but smallpox killed 300 million laste century alone? Ah, well - still a good story!
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
The presentation covered: Phase I/II randomized, double blind, multi-center, placebo-controlled safety and efficacy study designed to evaluate the norovirus monovalent GI.1 VLP vaccine versus placebo Results from the Norovirus vaccine proof-of-concept, multi-center challenge study Ongoing clinical study of an intramuscular bivalent formulation of norovirus vaccine candidate Of course, they don't mention you can make it in plants too....
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Catch up with the latest bird flu news from across the globe with our daily bird flu updates... Great site to follow avian flu
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
A quantitative understanding of the spread of contaminated farm dust between locations is a prerequisite for obtaining much-needed insight into one of the possible mechanisms of disease spread between farms. Here, we develop a model to calculate the quantity of contaminated farm-dust particles deposited at various locations downwind of a source farm and apply the model to assess the possible contribution of the wind-borne route to the transmission of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus (HPAI) during the 2003 epidemic in the Netherlands. Atmospherics and physics meets viruses....
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
NAT has launched a report, ‘HIV and Hepatitis C Co-infection’, which looks at hepatitis C co-infection among HIV positive men gay men and the UK’s response to this growing health challenge... Treat one, and another pops up. Roll on the HCV vaccine!
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are firing such families from their practices, raising questions about a doctor's responsibility to these... Unethical, possibly, but stupid people are their own worst enemies. Trouble is, they extend it to their children.
|
Scooped by
Ed Rybicki
|
Scientists have created a form of the H5N1 avian flu virus that is transmissible between mammals, raising fears that it could trigger a human pandemic if it escapes from the lab - either through accidental release or as part of a bioterror attack. As debate rages over how much of the research should be published, and whether there is sufficient oversight of such work, you can follow all Nature's coverage of the issue here.
|