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Mosquitoes are deadly efficient at spreading disease. Despite vaccines and efforts to eradicate the pesky insects, they continue to infect humans with feared diseases like Zika virus, malaria and West Nile virus. Gaining the upper hand on mosquitoes requires speed. Their life cycle is typically two weeks or less and they need only warm weather and standing water to breed.

Drug-resistant bacteria are fast becoming one of the big worries of the 21st century. Now researchers at the University of Copenhagen have discovered a previously unknown weakness -- an Achilles' heel of bacteria. Their discovery, a crucial step in bacteria's energy metabolism, may be the first step in developing an entirely novel form of antibiotics.

A University of Saskatchewan (U of S) research team has discovered a way to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to antibiotics, potentially helping to blunt the edge of a looming threat to public health around the world.

Rapid testing for the Zika virus is a critical need in the recent Ebola-affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, says a Georgetown University professor, because of the recent Zika outbreak on nearby Cape Verde and the similarity in symptoms between Zika and early Ebola.

Researchers have developed a new technique for killing bacteria in seconds using highly porous gold nanodisks and light, according to a study published today in Optical Materials Express, a journal published by The Optical Society. The method could one day help hospitals treat some common infections without using antibiotics, which could help reduce the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance.

Health authorities from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and representatives of partner organizations have expressed confidence in the capacity of the three Ebola-impacted countries to effectively manage residual risks of new Ebola infections-pointing to the rapid government-led containment of recent flare-ups of the disease.

The antimicrobial arsenal that we count on to save millions of lives each year is alarmingly thin--and these microbes are rapidly evolving resistance to our weapons. But help may be on the way: In a study posted in the AMB Express, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) show that automated techniques commonly used to screen new drugs for mammalian cell toxicity could also dramatically speed up the challenging task of antimicrobial discovery.