After invasion, Ukrainian researchers turn into resistance fighters and refugees | Science

On 24 February, as Russian troops poured across the border in an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Sergei Mosyakin, director of the Institute of Botany in Kyiv, set out with a few key staff to secure the institute and its National Herbarium, which holds more than 2 million specimens representing the wealth of Ukraine’s floral and … Read more

Antibiotic resistance: C. difficile superbug has protective protein coat like chain mail

The outer coat of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium Clostridium difficile has a structure similar to chain mail that stops drugs and immune system cells from killing it Health 25 February 2022 By Carissa Wong The outer proteins of Clostridium difficile form a structure like chain mail Newcastle University A bacterium called Clostridium difficile is known as … Read more

The Science Behind Why Some of Us Can’t Grow Big Muscles After Turning 50

There is perhaps no better way to see the absolute pinnacle of human athletic abilities than by watching the Olympics. But at the Winter Games this year – and at almost all professional sporting events – you rarely see a competitor over 40 years old and almost never see a single athlete over 50.   … Read more

The 3rd Leading Global Cause of Death Is Likely Not What You Think, New Study Reveals

Antibiotic resistance is often seen as a ‘future problem’, but newly published data have revealed it’s affecting far, far more lives than you might imagine. In fact, the new estimates show that in 2019, there were 4.95 million deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance, making it the third leading cause of death worldwide.   Drugs … Read more

Antibiotic resistance killed more people than malaria or AIDS in 2019

About 1.3 million deaths were directly caused by drug-resistant bacterial infections in 2019, a global study estimates Health 20 January 2022 By Jason Arunn Murugesu Illustration of drug-resistant Shigella bacteria Stephanie Rossow/CDC More than a million people died from antibiotic-resistant infections across the globe in 2019, hundreds of thousands more than malaria or HIV/AIDS, according … Read more

Origins of Drug-Resistant Superbug Weren’t What We Thought, Surprise Discovery Shows

An evolutionary battle between fungi and bacteria on hedgehogs’ skin gave rise to a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria long before humans started using the antibiotics that were thought to lead to such superbugs, a new study reveals.   Researchers traced some lineages of the superbug MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, to a parasitic fungus found … Read more

MRSA: Bacteria on hedgehogs evolved antibiotic resistance before use of drugs

A strain of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium MRSA seems to have colonised the skin of hedgehogs more than 200 years ago – and many other similarly evasive bugs might exist in nature Life 5 January 2022 By Jessica Hamzelou A European hedgehog Coatesy/Shutterstock A strain of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium MRSA seems to have evolved in hedgehogs … Read more