viruses

When humans eventually travel to Mars and beyond, they'll have plenty to worry about along with the discomforts of eating freeze-dried food and drinking their own urine. A new report says they will probably be really sick, to boot -- from flare-ups of E. coli, chicken pox or staph infections.

A host of microscopic stowaways could make interplanetary voyagers sick, especially because human immune systems are compromised in space, and because bacteria seem to thrive in micro- or zero-gravity environments.

One of the most difficult aspects of science is conceptualizing some of the unbelievably large, (and unimaginably small) numbers that routinely pop up. The Universe is 5.5 x 10^23 miles across. A human hair is about 7 x 10^-4 inches across. Hard to imagine how things like cells, proteins and atoms all relate to one another. Now, at least for the very small things, the University of Utah has developed a fun little Flash graphic to make sense of all of it.

Last month, scientists reported that a clinical trial for an HIV vaccine showed the first-ever success in preventing transmission of the virus. However, a number of HIV researchers believe that the enthusiasm for last month's vaccine results should be dampened in light of a more comprehensive review of the data.

A decade ago, the bells of doom started to sound for carefree, swinging koalas. A new, HIV-like retrovirus had begun to attack the koala population, decimating its ranks and threatening extinction.

Now, the Australian researchers have launched an effort to stop the spread of the virus before it's too late.

A new map of the spread of HIV infection in Europe indicates that the virus traveled from major holiday destinations -- Greece, Portugal and Spain -- to northern European countries, New Scientist reports. A virologist determined how the virus evolved by sequencing parts of the virus genome from subjects throughout Europe -- 1,337 people from at least 11 countries. While a number of Mediterranean countries appeared to be sources for the virus, the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and Israel appeared to be hubs, through which the virus both came and went.

On May 5th, Konan Michel Yao was arrested for smuggling vials from a Canadian ebola research center into the United States. However, Mr. Yao wasn't a terrorist attempting to commit a biological weapon attack. Instead, Mr. Yao was a government scientist, en route to his new job studying biodefense at the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, he didn't even have any ebola in his possession.

When it comes to viruses, especially the serious kind that can make you bleed from your eye sockets and wipe out entire villages, most people naturally prefer to keep their distance. Not Nathan Wolfe. The 39-year-old epidemiologist has spent the past 10 years hunting them down in the jungles of Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By collecting thousands of blood samples from wild animals and the people who live in close contact with them, Wolfe and his team have uncovered new viruses related to HIV and smallpox. He's even documented how these animal-borne killers leap to humans, with blood serving as a vector in transmitting viruses from slaughtered animals to hunters.

At first it sounds like a terrible plan, the kind that results in zombies ruling the Earth. Imagine a killer virus, a bug that mutates so often that it inevitably finds a way to resist every drug. Now, rather than fight its ability to evolve, you enhance it. You speed up the mutation rate, forcing such dramatic genetic change that the virus crashes completely. In the movies, this technique, known as lethal mutagenesis, would create a supergerm, but in real life it’s spawning a powerful new class of antiviral drugs.