Recent News

By Region: Europe

Gold dust in fight against pandemics

(BusinessWeekly) UK scientists have devised a rapid new flu test using gold particles that could help prevent pandemics erupting across the globe. They have already developed a similar sensor for detecting cholera in contaminated water supplies.

December 2, 2013
| Filed under Europe, North America, International, Public Health, and Research
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2009 pandemic flu death toll much higher than official worldwide estimates

(Eurekalert) A research team consisting of more than 60 collaborators in 26 countries has estimated the global death toll from the 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 virus to be 10 times higher than the World Health Organization’s count, which was based on laboratory-confirmed cases of this flu. The study, which appears online in PLOS Medicine, Read More »

November 27, 2013
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, International, and Public Health
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Rapid Sequencing Method Can Identify New Viruses Within Hours

(DiscoverMagazine) In 2009, two teenagers in the Democratic Republic of Congo showed up at their village health clinic, vomiting and with blood in their noses and mouths — hemorrhagic symptoms of the notorious Ebola viruses. In three days they were dead. Yet it took three years for researchers to unmask the likely culprit: a brand-new Read More »

November 19, 2013
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Biotechnology, Public Health, and Research
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Pentagon To Develop Q Fever Vaccine; U.S. Military To Focus On Biological Weapons Defense

(MedicalDaily) Next month, the Pentagon will host a seminar for researchers interested in developing a vaccine for the virus that causes Q fever, an animal-borne illness “weaponized” first by the U.S. and then the Soviet Union decades ago.

November 18, 2013
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biosafety, Bioterrorism, and Research
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Anthrax bacteria play hide and seek

(EurekaAlert) An EPFL team discovers that, using exosomes, the lethal factor of the anthrax bacterium can travel undetected through the body for days. The bacterium responsible for anthrax develops a strategy reminiscent of the Trojan horse tale. Its pathogenic factor is able to penetrate inside a cell in such a way that it becomes completely Read More »