• Transforming acids into bases

    Chemists at the University of California, Riverside have accomplished in the lab what until now was considered impossible: transform a family of compounds which are acids into bases; the research offers vast family of new catalysts for use in drug discovery, biotechnology

  • Wisconsin hospitals ahead of the curve

    In the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic while public health officials across the United States were contending with shortages of basic supplies like ventilator masks, Wisconsin health authorities were able smoothly to weather the storm thanks to its stockpiles of protective clothing, emergency planning, and advanced training

  • Antibacterial stainless steel created

    Materials scientists have devised a way of making stainless steel surfaces resistant to bacteria; by introducing silver or copper into the steel surface — rather than coating it on to the surface — the researchers have developed a technique that not only kills bacteria but is very hard and resistant to wear and tear during cleaning

  • Satellites could predict next cholera outbreak

    With cholera making an unlikely resurgence, catching countries like Haiti and Pakistan by surprise, public health officials are exploring the potential for new technology to help stem the spread of future outbreaks; each year the disease affects three to five million people and claims more than 100,000 lives; researchers believe that satellite images of oceans could help forecast when a cholera outbreak is likely to strike

  • Sprouts declared source of deadly E.coli outbreak, again

    After declaring last week that sprouts were not the culprit of the deadly E. coli outbreak, German officials are now saying that sprouts were indeed the source after all; the announcement comes without conclusive evidence that sprouts were the source of the bacterial outbreak; instead health investigators are relying on circumstantial evidence; tests from the farm located in Lower Saxony have come up negative for the rare strain of E. coli that is sickening patients

  • Boulder Colorado hit with plague and rabies

    On 3 June, the Boulder County Public Health (BCPH) department warned residents of the Mapleton Hill area that a domestic cat and a dead squirrel had tested positive for the plague; according to Joe Malinowski, the manager of BCPH’s Environmental Health Division, last week a second dead squirrel was found with the plague, but the cat had been successfully treated for the disease; so far there have been no other confirmed cases, but residents have reported several additional dead squirrels

  • Method used in hunting serial killers can be used against killer diseases

    Geographic profiling, a method used in the hunt for serial killers, can help combat infectious diseases; the statistical technique uses the locations of crimes to identify areas in which the serial criminal is most likely to live and work; it was originally developed to help police prioritize suspects, but can now be used to map the locations of diseases to try and identify the source of the disease

  • New device could help stop one of the world's deadliest killers

    A new portable and low cost water sanitation device could help save millions of lives each year; water borne diseases contracted from contaminated water are one of the world’s leading causes of death; each year nearly two million people die, primarily young children, from preventable diseases like diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid from drinking unsafe water; it is estimated that roughly 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water, but all that could potentially change thanks to Torben Frandsen’s LifeStraw; LifeStraw is a 10 inch long straw that is capable of generating 185 gallons of clean water, requires no electricity, and can be cheaply manufactured

  • CDC instructs on preparations for Zombie Apocalypse

    There are many exotic diseases the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating, and about it which it warns Americans; few followers of the health agency were prepared for its latest post: “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse”; the post, written by Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan, instructs readers how to prepare for “flesh-eating zombies” – zombies similar to those one sees in movies like “Night of the Living Dead” and video games like Resident Evil; CDC spokesperson said: “It’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek campaign—- We were talking about hurricane preparedness and someone bemoaned that we kept putting out the same messages”

  • HHS awards SIGA Technologies smallpox contract worth up to $2.8 billion

    New York-based SIGA Technologies has signed a 5-year, $433 million contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to deliver two million courses of the company’s smallpox antiviral, ST-246, to the Strategic National Stockpile; the contract includes options that would raise the contract’s total value to approximately $2.8 billion if these options are fully exercised

  • Researchers use app to map spread of infectious diseases

    Researchers in the United Kingdom are using cell phones to map how infectious diseases are spread to help tailor public health policies during a mass outbreak; researchers developed a special app, called FluPhone, for mobile phones that gathered medical data from the user as well as information on how they interacted with other people; the app provides a scientific method for measuring the social activity of an entire population in real-time; FluPhone app can also be used to run simulations on how a disease would actually spread

  • Asthma cases rising, researchers do not know why

    Despite efforts in the United States to improve air quality, recent research shows that asthma rates are on the rise, leaving public health officials baffled; on Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that from 2001 to 2009 an additional 4.3 million people had been diagnosed with asthma; in 2001, 7.3 percent of the United States suffered from asthma, but in 2009 that number grew to 8.2 percent; black children saw the largest increase in asthma rates, growing nearly 50 percent over the last decade

  • Social media helps CDC track Playboy Mansion disease outbreak

    Thanks to social media outlets, medical researchers are one step closer to discovering why more than 120 people were infected with a mysterious illness following a 3 February party at the Playboy Mansion; investigators suspect that the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease may have been the source of the outbreak after its presence was discovered in the grotto of the Playboy Mansion; officials used online tools like Twitter, Facebook, and online polling to help track the disease outbreak; these tools were particularly helpful because they allowed officials to quickly identify the outbreak, communicate quickly with conference goers who came from thirty countries, and to issue instructions for the infected

  • California schools struggle to vaccinate millions against whooping cough

    After experiencing its worst whooping cough outbreak in more than six decades, California is taking extra precautions to ensure that children are vaccinated against the preventable disease; California lawmakers mandated that all children entering the seventh grade and up must have a whooping cough booster vaccine; but parents and school districts are still scrambling to get children vaccinated before the Fall when students will be prohibited from entering a classroom without it; nearly three million students must be vaccinated making it a logistical nightmare for schools to process paperwork; in 2010, there were than 7,800 cases of whooping cough and the disease claimed the lives of ten children

  • Information sharing seen as public health "game changer"

    Public health officials are pushing for the creation of shared databases that contain electronic health records (EHRs) to help combat infectious diseases and stop epidemics; a CDC official pointed to the positive impact that electronic health information exchanges (HIE) have on public health; during the 2003 SARS outbreak, Milwaukee helped establish a four-state network that automatically detected new cases of SARS based on electronic reports from local hospital emergency rooms; manual reporting of test results is a slow process, but with the use of electronic reporting public health officials can now quickly identify epidemics and pandemics as they occur