http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a gene associated with narcolepsy, a disorder that causes disabling daytime sleepiness, sleep attacks, irresistible bouts of sleep that can strike at any time, and disturbed sleep at night. The gene has a known role in the immune system, which strongly suggests that autoimmunity, in which the immune system turns against the body's own tissues, plays an important role in the disorder. http://www.physorg.com/news160592892.html Medicine & Health Sun, 03 May 2009 18:08:51 EST news160592892 One week into the race to catch up with the swine flu virus, here's the score: Virus, hundreds. Vaccine, zero. While the virus has moved with lightning speed to four continents, U.S. authorities are debating whether to make a protective vaccine. Will it be too late? http://www.physorg.com/news160547534.html Medicine & Health Sun, 03 May 2009 05:33:43 EST news160547534 (AP) -- As the number of swine flu cases in Mexico wanes and rises, experts are being forced to walk a public health tightrope - if they push their message too far and the virus fizzles out, they could lose credibility. But if they back off and it suddenly surges, they will be blamed. http://www.physorg.com/news160544908.html Medicine & Health Sun, 03 May 2009 04:49:51 EST news160544908 (AP) -- Paris Hilton says "I don't eat that" when asked about swine flu in an online video. She's not the only one confused about the outbreak. http://www.physorg.com/news160371507.html Medicine & Health Fri, 01 May 2009 04:41:37 EST news160371507 (AP) -- As reports of a unique form of swine flu erupt around the world, the inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? http://www.physorg.com/news160030889.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:01:54 EST news160030889 (AP) -- A $225 million fund to provide low-price anti-malaria medicine around the world was launched in the Norwegian capital Friday to fight a disease that kills 2,000 children a day. http://www.physorg.com/news159342410.html Medicine & Health Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:48:53 EST news159342410 The first complete update in five years of the U.S. guidelines for preventing and treating HIV-associated opportunistic infections has been released by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in cooperation with the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). http://www.physorg.com/news159098303.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:59:09 EST news159098303 (PhysOrg.com) -- Groundbreaking CSIRO research into how the deadly Hendra virus spreads promises to save the lives of both horses and humans in the future. http://www.physorg.com/news159014912.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:49:50 EST news159014912 (AP) -- An extensive investigation has failed to determine how E. coli bacteria was introduced into a northeastern Oklahoma restaurant linked to hundreds of illnesses and one death, the state health board said in a report released Thursday. http://www.physorg.com/news158516911.html Medicine & Health Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:29:38 EST news158516911 (AP) -- The flu season is winding down and turning out to be one of the mildest in years, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.physorg.com/news158346469.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:08:19 EST news158346469 Damage to patients' immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. http://www.physorg.com/news158321117.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:05:38 EST news158321117 Pigs are known carriers of the bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica, and they can infect both other pigs and people. Human infection occurs through eating improperly-cooked pork. Professor Truls Nesbakken of the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science is trying to rid pigs of the bacterium. http://www.physorg.com/news158312027.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:34:15 EST news158312027 Using probiotics successfully against a number of animal diseases has helped scientists from University College Cork, Ireland to understand some of the ways in which they work, which could lead to them using probiotics to prevent and even to treat human diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news157869202.html Biology Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:34:45 EST news157869202 Recent research has predicted that climate change may expand the scope of human infectious diseases. A new review, however, argues that climate change may have a negligible effect on pathogens or even reduce their ranges. The paper has sparked debate in the ecological community. http://www.physorg.com/news157809539.html Space & Earth Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:00:12 EST news157809539 Doctors have developed and validated a clinical prediction rule for recurrent Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection that was simple, reliable and accurate, and can be used to identify high-risk patients most likely to benefit from measures to prevent recurrence. Their findings appear in a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. http://www.physorg.com/news157805000.html Medicine & Health Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:44:25 EST news157805000 (PhysOrg.com) -- The spread of malaria, one of the world's most prevalent insect-borne diseases and a leading killer of children, may have more to do with landscape than precipitation as the world warms, according to a new study. http://www.physorg.com/news157739485.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:32:15 EST news157739485 Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and at Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium, have identified a new role for certain lung cells in the immune response to airborne allergens. Many foreign substances, called antigens, are inhaled daily, but the lungs have mechanisms that usually prevent people from making unwanted immune responses to these materials. http://www.physorg.com/news157633193.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:00:37 EST news157633193 Experts from Queen's University Belfast have developed new agents to fight MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections that are resistant to antibiotics. The fluids are a class of ionic liquids that not only kill colonies of these dangerous microbes, they also prevent their growth. http://www.physorg.com/news157186221.html Chemistry Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:50:52 EST news157186221 Using data from nearly 8000 local surveys of malaria parasite infection rates, an international team of researchers has built a global map showing the proportion of the population infected with the parasite Plasmodium falciparum at locations throughout the globe. Published in this week's PLoS Medicine, the map shows that areas where a high proportion of residents are infected are common - but by no means uniform - in Africa, while lower prevalence levels are found in the Americas and Central and Southeast Asia, although pockets of intermediate and high transmission remain in some parts of Asia. http://www.physorg.com/news157105558.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:27:02 EST news157105558 A new study suggests that previously noted low rates of successful hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy in African Americans are in large part due to very early differences in the antiviral activity induced by interferon. The study is published in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. http://www.physorg.com/news156782952.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:49:46 EST news156782952 The traditional view is that hepatocyte necrosis is the main feature of fulminant hepatic failure, but increasing evidence implicates a dominant role for hepatocyte apoptosis in this pathogenesis. It is not known if cathepsin B-mediated hepatocyte apoptosis is involved in the pathogenesis of fulminant hepatic failure. To ascertain its pathogenic role in hepatic failure, the research examined the protective effect of a cathepsin B inhibitor (CA-074Me) on fulminant hepatic failure in mice. http://www.physorg.com/news156771558.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:39:40 EST news156771558 USA300--the major epidemic strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causing severe infections in the United States during the past decade--inherits its destructiveness directly from a forefather strain of the bacterium called USA500 rather than randomly acquiring harmful genes from other MRSA strains. This finding comes from a new study led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. http://www.physorg.com/news156512182.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:39:13 EST news156512182 Eating dog meat is common in many Asian countries, but research conducted as part of the South East Asian Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Network has discovered a potentially lethal risk associated with preparing dog meat: rabies. http://www.physorg.com/news156512063.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:34:55 EST news156512063 Many scientists believe a vaccine that prevents HIV infection will need to stimulate the body to make neutralizing antibodies, infection-fighting proteins that prevent HIV from entering immune cells. Previous research has shown that some individuals who control HIV infection without medication naturally produce antibodies able to neutralize diverse strains of HIV. Until now, however, scientists were hampered in studying the way effective HIV-neutralizing antibodies arise during natural HIV infection because scientists lacked the tools to obtain more than a few HIV-specific antibodies from any given individual. http://www.physorg.com/news156428787.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:26:47 EST news156428787 Someone in the developing world - particularly in rural Africa - dies from a rabid dog bite every 10 minutes. http://www.physorg.com/news156089095.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:05:39 EST news156089095 In a collaborative study with the World Health Organization and seven other laboratories, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have compiled a list of 93 common mutations of the AIDS virus associated with drug resistance that will be used to track future resistance trends throughout the world. http://www.physorg.com/news155558471.html Medicine & Health Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:41:53 EST news155558471 A major breakthrough about the potentially deadly superbug Clostridium difficile (C-diff) could lead to new ways to combat the bacterium, according to a study to be published March 1 in the journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news155137843.html Medicine & Health Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:51:31 EST news155137843 In times of starvation, cells tighten their belts: they start to digest their own proteins and cellular organs. The process - known as autophagy - takes place in special organelles called autophagosomes. It is a strategy that simple yeast cells have developed as a means of survival when times get tough, and in the course of evolution, it has become a kind of self-cleaning process. In mammalian cells, autophagosomes are also responsible for getting rid of misfolded proteins, damaged organelles or disease-causing bacteria. http://www.physorg.com/news154958639.html Biology Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:04:29 EST news154958639 As influenza season shifts into high gear, with 24 states now reporting widespread activity, the nation's infectious diseases experts are urging supermarket pharmacies with free-antibiotics promotions to educate their customers on when antibiotics are the right prescription -and when they can do more harm than good. http://www.physorg.com/news154789898.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:16:03 EST news154789898 Millions of "natural killer cells" -- nature's first line of defense against cancer, viruses and other infectious microbes --- are on constant patrol inside your body. http://www.physorg.com/news154541184.html Medicine & Health Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:07:11 EST news154541184