• Since December 2016, Brazil has been grappling with its worst yellow fever outbreak for several decades. To date, there have been 2,043 human cases including 676 fatalities, mainly occurring in ten Brazilian states including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. These two states, the most heavily populated in Brazil, had been free of yellow fever for nearly 70 years. Research by scientists at the Institut Pasteur and the Institut Oswaldo Cruz has demonstrated that the yellow fever virus can be transmitted via Aedes albopictus, the tiger mosquito. This opportunistic species is capable of colonizing both urban and forest areas.

  • A University of Adelaide-led team of researchers has found a link between sudden cardiac death (when the heart suddenly stops beating) and a common heart condition known as mitral valve prolapse that affects around 12 in every 1000 people worldwide.

  • The Sherpa people of the Himalayas have long been recognized for their unique ability to excel physically in the thin air of higher altitudes. But new research from UBC’s Okanagan campus, published last week in the Journal of Physiology, now suggests that their specially adapted muscles give them up to twice the resistance to muscle fatigue of lowlanders.

  • An innovation in liquid metal chemistry could help one tenth of the planet’s population get access to clean drinking water at very low cost following breakthrough research.

  • Outdoor air pollution is a major contributor to indoor air pollution -- but high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters used in the home significantly reduce fine-particulate matter in the air compared with non-HEPA air filters.

  • It seems “hangry” isn’t just a made-up term.

    University of Guelph researchers have revealed that the sudden drop in glucose we experience when we are hungry can impact our mood.

  • Every year, millions of people have vacations and business trips ruined when they succumb to “traveler’s diarrhea” during their journeys. A major cause of traveler’s diarrhea is bacteria called Enterotoxigenic E. coli, or ETEC. A joint effort between the University of Georgia and the University of Texas at Austin has discovered how ETEC works to cause disease. They are using this information in an effort to develop a preventive vaccine for travelers.

  • University of Copenhagen researchers have discovered a surprising tactic of pathogenic bacteria when being attacked by antibiotics: hibernation.

  • "Health trumps politics,” said Iowa State Senator David Johnson before taking the stage at a raucous rally in Des Moines last winter to support strengthening the state’s water quality. In the marble rotunda of the state capitol, he rose to denounce the nitrogen and phosphates that have been flowing in ever-increasing quantities into Iowa’s public water supplies — and was cheered by the small crowd of family farmers, concerned mothers, and his new political allies, the legislature’s drastically outnumbered Democrats. Johnson had been one of the longest-serving Republicans in Iowa until he left the party to become an independent in 2016 after defying it  repeatedly on one of the most divisive issues in Iowa — the integrity of the state’s water.

  • The team from Imperial College London were able to crash caged populations of the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles gambiae in only 7-11 generations.