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Antibiotic Resistant Bacterium MRSA Evolved In Hedgehogs 200 Years Ago, Study Finds
One type of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant bacterial scourge of modern clinical medicine – may have evolved 200 years ago in wild European hedgehogs, according to a recent study.
Meet Onesimus, The Enslaved Man Who Saved Colonial Boston From Smallpox
When a smallpox epidemic ravaged Boston in 1721, a doctor named Zabdiel Boylston got the seemingly crazy idea to expose healthy people to small amounts of pus from smallpox patients.
6 Weird Ways People Tried To Cure The 1918 Influenza
It’s almost impossible to avoid comparing the Covid-19 pandemic to the pandemics of the past, especially the bubonic plague and the 1918 flu pandemic.
How Ben Franklin Went From Anti-Vaxxer To Advocate
As the epidemic raged on, a Boston physician announced that he could expose people to the virus in a way that would give them a much milder, less dangerous infection – and then protect them from smallpox for the rest of their lives.
Social Distancing Stopped A 1941 Typhus Epidemic In The Warsaw Ghetto
In 1941, a typhus epidemic swept through the Warsaw Ghetto, where people were already trapped, crowded, and starving – and living under constant fear of worse reprisals from the Nazi occupiers.
Annie Glenn, Crusader For Speech Pathology And Wife To Astronaut, Is Dead At Age 100
Glenn, who spoke with a stutter since her childhood, spent the second half of her life advocating for people with speech disorders and teaching speech pathology as an adjunct professor at Ohio State University.
Think Social Distancing For Coronavirus Is Overkill? Here’s A Cautionary Tale From St. Patrick’s Day, 1918
A century ago, with the U.S. in the midst of another pandemic — the 1918 flu — some cities insisted on holding parades. Not shockingly, it didn’t end well.
SETI@Home Is Over; The Fight Against COVID-19 Coronavirus Is Just Beginning
After more than 20 years of searching for extraterrestrial radio signals, the SETI@Home project is going into hibernation mode on March 31. But just as SETI@Home winds down, another distributed computing project is asking for help in the fight against …
Be Careful What You Call The Coronavirus
The coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan, China has sickened at least 7,800 people in at least 18 countries around the world – but we shouldn’t name it after Wuhan.
The Iron Lung Was Just An Engineer’s Side Project
The iron lung defined a generation’s experience with polio. Today, its metal bulk embodies the horror of the disease, but in the 1950s, it saved hundreds of lives.
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