Scientists reveal plan to target the cause of Alzheimer’s disease
24 September 2018Researchers have developed a new way to target the toxic particles that destroy healthy brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease.
Citizen science experiment predicts massive toll of flu pandemic on the UK
22 March 2018How fast could a new flu epidemic spread? The results of the UK’s largest citizen science project of its kind ever attempted, carried out by thousands of volunteers, predict that 43 million people in the UK could be infected in an influenza pandemic, and with up to 886,000 of those infected expected to be fatalities.
Pox populi: Study calculates 18th century syphilis rates for first time
14 September 2017The unlikely coincidence of a local hospital record and a census led by a pioneering physician has enabled the first study charting rates of venereal disease in 18th century England, revealing high infection levels in the city of Chester at this time.
Tiny changes in Parkinson’s protein can have “dramatic” impact on processes that lead to the disease
30 August 2016Specific mutations in the protein associated with Parkinson’s Disease, in which just one of its 140 building blocks is altered, can make a dramatic difference to processes which may lead to the condition’s onset, researchers have found.
California’s sudden oak death epidemic now ‘unstoppable’ and new epidemics must be managed earlier
02 May 2016New research shows the sudden oak death epidemic in California cannot now be stopped, but that its tremendous ecological and economic impacts could have been greatly reduced if control had been started earlier. The research also identifies new strategies to enhance control of future epidemics, including identifying where and how to fell trees, as “there will be a next time”.
Opinion: How fruit flies can help keep African scientists at home
15 February 2016Timothy Weil (Department of Zoology) and Silvia Muñoz-Descalzo (University of Bath) discuss the project that aims to make the fruit fly a model organism for research in Africa.
Opinion: How close are we to successfully editing genes in human embryos?
17 December 2015Azim Surani (Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute) discusses gene editing of the human germline.
On the trail of history’s biggest killers
06 March 2015As well as telling us more about earlier societies, the study of diseases in the past is proving an invaluable tool for modern science, as a new book by the historian of medicine Mary Dobson reveals.
11,000-year-old living dog cancer reveals its secrets
23 January 2014Scientists have sequenced the genome of the world’s oldest continuously surviving cancer, a transmissible genital cancer that affects dogs.
First estimates of country-specific global salt intake identified
23 December 2013Researchers discover that global sodium consumption is far higher than is healthy
