Microbiology and Immunology

I remember reading an article how nearly 600 people a year die of the common flu in the UK. Now imagine every country in europe you are going to have a large number of people. Who unfortunately will suffer from the flu virus. My question is has the media made us overeact to the corona virus ?. I am sure if the media had focused on the flu virus and its casualities there would be equally wide spread panic.

There have been some promising developments regarding Chloroquine (a generic anti-malarial) as a potential treatment for COVID-19. South Korea has apparently begun incorporating it into their treatment regimens, with positive results. Chloroquine (chloroquine diphosphate) allows Zinc to permeate the cell membrane and inhibit the replication of the virus. Here is the full breakdown with citations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M

Hello everyone! What do you think about misusing coffee filters as makeshift face masks against Covid-19? Several countries lack face masks in the present epidemic. At least the shape fits the function. Cut the paper to fit the face better. Hold it on the face with surgical tape across the whole rim. Whether paper is good? Under rain it won't last long. The pores in a coffee filter are wider than a virus, but I understand a face mask stops only the droplets that contain the viruses. Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

Is the spate of clotting cases in the EU a case of false correlation due to coincidence?

Not sure whether this is better for here or Biology, but I'll put it here for now. I assume most of you have already heard of China's coronavirus outbreak, but in case you haven't, a little refresher... https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-chinese-wet-market-photos-2020-1 A. So does this suggest doing farming within the city limits of a major city is more likely to spread disease than relegating the farming tasks to small towns? Does it depend on whether it's meat farming or just vegetable farming? Either way, how come China often does their farming in major cities, while in the United States, farming's considered a "small town" thing?…

We are (all?) washing our hands etc more and doing so with chemicals we hope will degrade coronavirus. So would this lead to the demise of less resistant variants and development of those strains that are more resistant ?

Is it true that the lab in Wuhan is one of only three labs in the world that do gain of function research? If this is true, I don't understand how this could NOT be a lab leak (and please fact check me on these points, perhaps I got something wrong): - COVID is a new variant of a previous virus - the previous virus had only the capacity to infected bats/animals, no bat->human transmission - gain of function modification can give a virus the ability to infect humans when it previously couldn't - only three labs in the world do this kind of modification - there are wet markets in Wuhan where such a virus could have originated, but presumably…

With the recent influx of illegal aliens, (via the president), and those with ebola and other fatal diseases, is it just over-hype and media scare with the looming possibility of ebola spreading across the country? -I say this b/c ebola is only passed via contact with contaminated feces, and/or ingestion of contaminated bodily fluids..it's not as if it were airborne or transferred via respiratory droplets. your thought... ~ee

which is your favourite parasite? mine would probablz be Thisbe Irena, a caterpillar that uses pheromones and other structures to take over ant colonies.

I know this one is far from over, but I'm curious to see what people would do differently with the next one, what lessons we have learned from this one. Here are my own suggestions. 1) Move Heaven and Earth to nip it in the bud. We COULD have done it this time, with more drastic isolation procedures. Right at the start, we had a weakly transmissable virus, with low numbers of cases. A couple of weeks of truly drastic action would have wiped the virus out. In the UK, even with the virus established, with a lockdown, we reduced it from 5,000 cases per day to 398, between april and july 2020. But then they eased off, and now we have 50,000 a day with a much more t…

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic there have been key findings that have altered our understanding or required responses to this disease. For example, the realization that pre- or asymptomatic persons might be infectious has required a different approach to masking and social distancing. While we have several threads discussing the pandemic, I feel that recent developments justify a new topic, especially as it could be used to clarify potential misunderstandings. With the delta variant (B.1.617.2) gaining dominance we are seeing yet another change that requires us to re-think the trajectory of the pandemic. First of all, the transmission rate of this variant is much h…

Ok, I may seem a little paranoid in this situation, but last year i flat out stopped drinking the water from the drinking fountains at our school. Not only did the taste almost kill me, but I had a hunch that it was somewhat contaminated. Me being the good little microbiologist took a few samples this year, and with a rather nice microscope, took some good pictures. I used a DNA stain called acradine orange. Red=single stranded DNA Yellow= mix of single and double stranded DNA Orange= Highly metabolic, and single stranded. Check them out- Im sry I cant upload them all at once, I need to do it in several posts, due to their size. This one is my personal …

Don't you reckon it's a great idea to train people to vaccinate each other in public? Like, the process of administering an injection is very simple, I've seen tutorials on youtube, like a 4 step process. If everybody in the world were trained to administer flu shots, or tetanus shots, for instance There could be random booths put up all over the place, one could just walk upto a person on the street and be like "Wanna give me my flu injection" Just an idea I had wanted to share.

What is wrong with people immune system? They say 1 in 4 will get cancer in their life? And the latest data say 1 in 4 will get cancer in their life And that number is to change to 1 in 3 will get cancer in their life. What is wrong with people immune system? What is causing cancer? How long before there is cancer cure and how long will it take for cancer cure? Do you think 50 years from now there will be cancer cure? How long before cancer is cure 50 years from now or like 100 years from now?

I was just wondering if AIDS was really an ancient disease, not discovered in past centuries, or is it truly a new disease?

hello friends, just a simple Q, could anyone tell me what the maximum daily intake for pumpkin & and any side effects ?? (i don't want to see my skin turn into pumpkin) after google for 2 days, i cannot get a reliable answer. thanks.

Does anyone who has knowledge about vaccinations and or cancer have any ideas on the matter of cancer being linked possibly to vaccinations...any vaccines and any cancer too. Not just limited to a specific type of cancer or vaccine, just in general could there be a link between vaccines and cancer? This is not a 'crap' font...Don't read my posts then. And I didn't HEAR anything. I HAVE IDEAS OF MY OWN! I was asking a question, you shouldn't answer questions. Thanks for your opinion but I know what a vaccine is.

I have severe OCD and I used to think I was pretty educated on HIV and did not lose my mind fearing it the way I have now. Please keep in mind before reading and responding that these fears are really impacting my life as I can't stop thinking about this. What makes it worse is that I can't seem to find many answers. Here is what happened: I read about a dentist and some other medical offices that weren't following universal precautions and were putting people at rick for HIV and HEP C. This triggered my OCD and I decided to get test. At this point however, given that needles and syringes were my reason for getting tested, I wasn't capable to do a regular blood draw. …

Hi everyone, I'm working on a science fiction novel, and came here to hopefully get some help with Real Science in order to make my story more plausible. I love science, but I'm more of an occasionally-informed lay person than a serious student of the sciences. My current story is about a human subspecies genetically engineered for immunity to a virus I call The Grip. Their immune systems create Grip antibodies, but humans' do not, and the Grip virus attacks the organs. I have a ton of questions about viruses and immunity, and hope you can help. I'll start off with just a few: 1. If the virus appeared to the human immune system as a beneficial protein, w…

Hi, The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has a document called "Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)". You can find it here: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6002a1.htm Reference 79 in the document is the following paper: Nakayama T, Aizawa C, Kuno-Sakai H. A clinical analysis of gelatin allergy and determination of its causal relationship to the previous administration of gelatin-containing acellular pertussis vaccine combined with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids. J Allergy Clin Immunol 1999;103:321--5. Link to the paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9949325 The paper concludes: "Most anaphylactic reacti…

I was going to get a mircoscope and I was searching on ebay. I found a Amscope that sold superizingly cheap microscope and I was wondering if anyone bought a microscope from them and how relayiable they are and if it is worth buying? Site: http://www.amscope.com/ Product: http://store.amscope.com/b100b-ms.html

Hi, I wonder why vaccines are not injected directly into the bloodstream? Why is it better that it takes like 40 minutes to an hour instead of directly? What would happen if you were to do it?

Hi, Is there anyone who works in Microbiology and can check slides? I have itching on my body and took scrapings to see if I can find an answer, but don't see anything suspicious on the slides. I have pics of the slides and can email. Maybe there are independent labs I can send the slides to be read. I been to numerous docs over the years and still no help. Please respond to my post if you can.

HIV is a serious threat to present and future generations, as you will know if you follow the news and science papers. It would be interesting if we could maintain a 'Think Tank' to collate current approaches to fighting the virus, and to process the plausability of conjectural treatment. It has occurred to me recently that where there has been much research into the prevention of T4 - HIV interactions through inhibitors etc, there does not seem to be any research that exploits the virus' affinity for this structure. So, some questions: Red blood cells have a far greater volume than T4-lymphocytes, no nucleus, and are more numerous by a long way. Would…

Hi: My favorite bacteria are: 1. Not gram-negative 2. Free of lipopolysaccharide 3. Non-pathogenic 4. Non-toxic 5. Non-allergenic In terms of respiration, they are any one of the following: 1. Facultative-anaerobes [can use oxygen but don't need it] 2. Obligate anaerobes [can only survive in total or near-total absence of oxygen] 3. Aerotolerant-anaerobes [can survive in oxygen but don't use it for respiration or otherwise require it]. Let’s say the following hypothetical scenario occurs: A sample of fresh, raw, annatto-free, preservative-free, carrageen-free, carrageenan-free, polysorbate-free, purely-natural, disease-free, completely-organ…