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The black and orange patches that define the coloring of a calico cat beautifully illustrate the genetic mechanism known as "dosage compensation" through X chromosome inactivation.

If you've been tracking efforts to combat the Hepatitis C virus, you know that 2015 has been a year full of advances and hope for the future. First, there was FDA's approval of the treatment Viekira Pax, and recently California researchers have unearthed diagnostic gold with their latest screening process.

Adding HPV (human papillomavirus) screening to conventional Pap tests appears to significantly improve the early detection of precancerous cervical abnormalities and reduce the rate of subsequent cervical cancer, according to a new study in The Lancet Oncology.

Microbiologists have long known that the kitchen is an incredibly fertile field for bacterial growth — and a prime source is the kitchen sponge. A recent study of sponges found that even those that are "cleaned" by their users provide a soup of bacteria — some of which are pathogenic.

A story that's gone viral (again) claims that McDonald's touchscreen menus are fecally tainted. Is it true? No. The global headlines saying otherwise are total lies. So, on what basis are these folks making that ridiculous claim?

With the recent discovery of polymyxin-resistant infection here in the U.S., there's a renewed pledge among drug developers and the government to incentivize research for developing new antibiotics, previously a seemingly abandoned effort.

You d have to be living under a rock to miss the news that antibiotic resistance is a major public health problem that threatens to set us back to square one in terms of treating bacterial infections. Many practices have been implicated as part of the problem, but there's something new for that list: travel.

As overused as the expression you can t make this up is, sometimes there is simply no other phrase that can do the trick. You decide.
Yesterday, it was Chinese dietary supplements that were in the news. Today it s spices from India. And if there is a better way to illustrate how badly the FDA s hands are tied while trying to protect people from substances they should not be consuming, it isn t obvious.

Dr. A. Zuger's NYTimes column presents an excellent discussion of penicillin allergies, both real, exaggerated, and severe and how to deal with them.

More than 40 years of AIDS research has led to significant advancements in treatment and prevention. Drugs to treat the infection continued to improve, as did patient outcomes. But now there's another major milestone. Gilead's lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable capsid inhibitor, achieved 100% efficacy in preventing HIV infections in women. For anyone who has followed AIDS over the years, this is simply amazing.

As the horror known as the coronavirus tightens its grip on the world, and a vaccine is years away, our best hope is an antiviral drug that minimizes the damage caused by coronavirus replication. New data on favipiravir, a repurposed drug originally discovered in Japan, looks promising in trials in China. But nothing is ever straightforward in drug discovery -- and that is no different here. Here's a summary of the new findings.

Shane Ellison, the self-proclaimed "People's Chemist," has a lot to say about chemistry, drugs, and vaccines. Let's see if he knows what he's talking about.

Do kids need COVID shots? It's a difficult question to answer, but incendiary commentary has unnecessarily muddied the issue. Let's take a look at what we know so far.

Much of the concern about social distancing and the use of masks centers around the airborne transmission of the virus. A recent study looks at how other factors, like temperature and humidity, make COVID-19 more or less viable when it comes to transmission.

The good news is that African swine fever has nothing to do with swine flu and does not infect humans; the bad news is mostly for pig farmers and ranchers who are facing, as Russian scientists claim, "arguably the most dangerous swine disease worldwide."

Men who have had sex with another man on any occasion since 1977 are currently prohibited from donating blood in the U.S. The ban was instated in 1983 as a response to the higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men (MSM) in order to prevent contaminating blood supplies with HIV. However, scientific advances have made the ban seem antiquated and in need of revision. In yesterday s Los Angeles Times, Dr. James P.

When it comes to finding new antibiotics, no place is too weird to look. Three separate teams of researchers have identified potentially useful antibiotics from some of the strangest places imaginable: Sponges, sea snails, and marine worms.

Controlling Big Tech, why is infrastructure so expensive to build and maintain, climate migration is altering the diseases we must confront, and a users-guide to breathing.

In yet another cool discovery using nature as a muse, English scientists have found that a foamy cocktail whipped up by Trinidadian frogs during mating may serve as a mode of antibiotic delivery to potentially prevent infections.

Yale researchers have discovered a virus that attacks bacteria, also known as bacteriophage (or "phage"), which is capable of infecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a highly-feared bacterial pathogen.

Far too many antibiotic prescriptions are written for infections that cannot be treated by them. A new study published in JAMA shows how some simple behavioral interventions can change prescribers habits toward more evidence-based prescribing.

A Medscape article entitled "Five-Day Course of Oral Antiviral Appears to Stop SARS-CoV-2 in Its Tracks" was recently published. Don't fall for the title. It's not that simple.

The CDC is again recommending that fully vaccinated Americans mask up in certain circumstances. This is bad advice at odds with the available evidence that will only seed more vaccine hesitancy.

What if a new gatekeeper to your future doctor’s education appeared — but forgot to write a rulebook? Amid headlines about addressing healthcare shortages, a new accreditation body is making promises of transparency and rigor. But behind the scenes lies a blueprint with more politics than policy.

Sickle Cell Disease is an awful genetic disease that disproportionally affects black people. It's caused by a single-point mutation in DNA, which results in a modified hemoglobin protein, differing by only one amino acid. While this may sound insignificant, it's anything but. Simple organic chemistry explains why this change profoundly affects those unfortunate enough to inherit the disease, which is characterized by abnormal hemoglobin.