Articles with the keyword: 
Louse infestation calibrates immune system regulation
piggy submitted, created time 10 months 3 weeks (www.eurekalert.org)
Some parasites can exert a moderating effect on the immune system, possibly reducing the host's risk of developing immune dysfunctions like asthma, allergies and some forms of arthritis. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology studied the effects of several parasites on the immune activity of wild wood mice, finding louse infestations to be associated with a reduced readiness to mount an immune response.
Janette Bradley led a team of researchers from the University of Nottingham who carried out the tests on a population of wood mice captured in a Nottinghamshire forest 
Gene Targeting Discovery Opens Door for Vaccines and Drugs
piggy submitted, created time 11 months 6 days (www.sciencedaily.com)
In a genetic leap that could help fast-track vaccine and drug development, DMS researchers have discovered how to destroy a key DNA pathway in a wily and widespread human parasite. The feat surmounts a major hurdle for targeting genes in Toxoplasma gondii, an infection model whose close relatives are responsible for diseases that include malaria and severe diarrhea
sea-maid submitted, created time 11 months 1 week (www.nature.com)
Antimalarial compound fights disease and fends off drug-resistant parasites in mice.
Parasite's conjugal bed discovered
sea-maid submitted, created time 11 months 1 week (www.nature.com)
Researchers have finally shown that the parasite responsible for leishmaniasis does engage in sex, potentially opening up new opportunities for fighting the deadly disease.
Leishmania parasites have been known to reproduce by cloning themselves, but until recently, it was only suspected that they could exchange genes and reproduce sexually. Now, a paper in Science reports key evidence for Leishmania sexual recombination.
Gates Foundation calls for push against tropical diseases
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (www.nature.com)
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has called for a worldwide push to slash the burden of neglected tropical diseases such as elephantiasis, trachoma and schistosomiasis by 2020.
The Sound of Six-Legged Majesty
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
Although better known for their chemical signals, ants also chirp. They scrape a tiny guitar pick-like appendage on their abdomens against grooved ridges on their posteriors, like a spoon against a washboard. Now researchers have discovered that the sounds allow one kind of ant to distinguish between workers and queens. Some caterpillars can mimic the queen's noises, the research also reveals, granting them food, care, and protection.
Researchers believed the chirps mainly functioned as alarm calls and were not part of normal communication
Mosquito genes could be target in malaria fight
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (www.newsdaily.com)
Researchers say they have identified genes that make some African malaria-carrying mosquitoes resistant to insecticide, and hope the breakthrough could boost efforts to prevent the deadly disease.
Two-drug combination puts sleeping sickness to bed
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
A 280-patient trial has shown that treating human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), commonly known as sleeping sickness, with only fourteen infusions of eflornithine paired with ten days' treatment with oral nifurtomox is at least as effective as the more grueling fifty-six-infusion eflornithine regimen or the more dangerous melarsoprol regimen. In addition, the two-drug approach showed fewer side effects and seems less likely to breed resistant parasites
Inner Workings of the Immune System Filmed
piggy submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (www.sciencedaily.com)
Forget what's number one at the box office this week. The most exciting new film features the intricate workings of the body, filmed by scientists using ground-breaking technology.
For the first time in Australia, scientists at Sydney's Centenary Institute have filmed an immune cell becoming infected by a parasite and followed the infection as it begins to spread throughout the body
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
As close as humans are to chimpanzees, why do they dodge some diseases that afflict us? And why are we different on so many other levels? A new study that compares genomes from more humans and chimps than ever before suggests that these and other variations might stem from extra or missing copies of key genes.
Although small genetic mutations often receive top billing as the drivers of evolution, the new study focuses on entire genes that are deleted or duplicated, so-called copy number variants (CNVs)
Pristionchus pacificus: an appropriate fondness for beetles
jerry submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.nature.com)
The nematode Pristionchus pacificus associates with one particular beetle and eats its rotting corpse. The report of the genome sequence of P. pacificus, the fifth nematode to be sequenced and a useful secondary nematode genetic model system, highlights genes that may have influenced the route to parasitism.
Scientists: Global Warming May Spread "Deadly Dozen" Diseases
jerry submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.foxnews.com)
Bird flu is just one of eleven diseases that may worsen with global warming, scientists are warning. Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society have nicknamed twelve diseases the “deadly dozen” and say they are spreading across the globe and becoming dangerous to human an animal populations.
The other eleven diseases include babesiosis, cholera, ebola, lyme disease, plague, red tides, rift valley fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, and yellow fever. Intestinal and external parasites are counted as one problem.
Parasitic worms may boost African HIV rates.
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.newscientist.com)
ONE of the biggest mysteries of HIV is why the virus spreads so readily via heterosexual sex in Africa but not elsewhere. A study in monkeys suggests parasitic worms may be to blame.
Many little parasites add up to one big biomass
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (environment.newscientist.com)
Parasites are small, but they punch above their weight in terms of their effects on other life forms. Now it turns out that the amount of parasites in an ecosystem physically weighs more than the top predators.
It was previously thought parasites did not contribute much biomass when put against that of other animals and plants. To check this, Armand Kuris of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues painstakingly estimated the biomass of animals, plants and parasites in three estuaries in California and Baja California
Parasitic worms may help fuel AIDS epidemic: study
kavin submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.reuters.com)
People infected with parasitic worms may be much more susceptible to the AIDS virus, according to a study published on Tuesday that may help explain why HIV has hit sub-Saharan Africa particularly hard.
The study involving monkeys demonstrated how a type of parasitic worm that causes schistosomiasis, which affects 200 million people globally, may make HIV infection more likely.
Much lower amounts of the AIDS virus--seventeen times lower--were needed to cause infection in monkeys who had the parasitic worms than in the parasite-free monkeys, the researchers said
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