Stealth Tactics of the Black Death Bacterium

Yersinia pestis holds the dubious title of the world's most devastating bacterial pathogen. While its glory days of the Black Death are thankfully a thing of the past, this pathogen remains a threat to human health to this day. A recent paper published in PNAS describes how the bacterium switches off the immune system...

Not born this way, or why I think Lady Gaga is underselling the awesomeness of the human race

There’s a lot in the news at the moment about a little boy who has been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder and is now living as a girl. I can’t quite decide how I feel about this. Part of me thinks it is awesome that his parents and teachers are being so supportive—god knows we could do with a bit more understanding when...

Dirty water in the time of cholera

I have a slight obsession with the sewers, which I don’t think is entirely normal or healthy. It’s the architecture more than the sewage itself but, as it happens, this post concerns the latter. Our tour of interesting things poo-related starts in London of 1858 and a period of history known as the Great Stink. The first half...

Genega, or how we require all of our genes to survive

I went to a birthday gathering in a pub the other day to which someone had brought along the game Jenga. Putting aside any conclusions you may want to make as to just how exciting it must be to party with my friends and me, the game actually illustrates an interesting point about evolution. Sort of.  The idea of Jenga is...

Running away is not an option, or how plants fight infection

Like animals, plants can be infected by a range of pathogenic organisms. And, like animals, plants possess an immune system to fight off attacks from pathogens. The plant immune system is analogous to the innate immune system in higher eukaryotes but does not involve mobile immune cells such as macrophages. Instead,...

Middle of the Road Pays for Pathogens

To understand why infectious diseases make us ill, it helps to consider disease from the pathogen’s point of view. Bacteria, viruses and parasites did not evolve simply to cause illness and suffering; virulence is simply a by-product of a pathogen’s fight for survival. Because an infectious agent which incapacitates its host...