• 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...

  • All ducks are equal but some are more equal than others

    I made the worst decision of my life the other day and think the guilt will linger for at least another decade. You know those little parks you can go to which are liberally scattered with ducks? Ducks on all the ponds, ducks mingling with the sheep and random alpacas, ducks pestering...

  • 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...

  • Susceptibility to Tuberculosis

    What does an Egyptian mummy have in common with one-third of the world’s population? The answer is tuberculosis (TB)—a disease which has been affecting mankind since prehistoric times. But, I hear you muttering, didn’t we already cure TB? Um, not really. Around 1.7 million people die from TB every...

  • 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...

  • Hitting an Invisible Target in TB Vaccine Design

     I have a troubled relationship with Twitter. It’s an unredeemable hate sort of thing. I’m generally an inane mix of angry opinion and low self-esteem so, in theory, we’re perfect for each other. I just don’t feel it, though. I had a quick look for online videos in the same vein of the YouTube...

Saturday, 26 November 2016

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The Missing Three Million

Posted by Kathryn at 11:37 • 0 comments
In Agra’s slums, community volunteers are visiting the houses one-by-one and asking the occupants a simple question: “Have you been coughing for more than two weeks?” Of the ten million new cases of TB every year, one-third remain invisible to the public health authorities. India currently holds the dubious title of World’s...

Sunday, 20 November 2016

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Blame the Europeans

Posted by Kathryn at 15:44 • 1 comments
You know when you drive an unfamiliar car and you have to find your way round all these knobs and buttons to make the car go in the direction you want it to go in? M. tuberculosis has the same problem when it comes to the human immune system. This can make things tricky as it’s a pathogen that practices immune subversion rather...
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