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Two widely prescribed antibiotics -- chloramphenicol and linezolid -- may fight bacteria in a different way from what scientists and doctors thought for years, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have found. Instead of indiscriminately stopping protein synthesis, the drugs put the brakes on the protein synthesis machinery only at specific locations in the gene.

For several years Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering, has gone to field sites to test new, low-cost microscopes as a tool for diagnosing the parasitic disease schistosomiasis. The devices showed promise, but Prakash was perplexed by how often kids treated for the disease were getting re-infected. Prakash quickly turned his attention to preventing infections at the first place.

Like many people his age, Jerry Lucier, 54, of Northville, Mich. never got the flu shot. Then, in April, he almost died as a result of an H1N1 flu infection and was transferred by medical helicopter to the ECMO unit at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Mich.

The delay between the time when a disease outbreak becomes possible and when it actually happens depends chiefly on how frequently infection is introduced to the population and how quickly the number of cases caused by a single individual increases, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

A Michigan State University researcher is challenging a widely held African belief that a spinal tap, a procedure safely used to treat other diseases, could suck the brain from the base of the skull and cause death in malaria patients.