Science. How hard can it be?

Babies. Some picture a cute little thing with fat little toes and fingers, an innocent smile and huge eyes. Others picture a tiny little devil that cries at the most inconvenient of places. Such as during flights. And then there are those that picture babies as perfect hosts; large objects with loads of resources with weak defence systems. Pathogens. I am talking about pathogens. All microbes (although I can speak of conviction with viruses, since I know these the best) love a good baby. […]

If I were a virus, I think I’d like to be Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). What is that, you ask? Exactly my point. Our lungs are the only organ in our body that is exposed to the filth of our environment. Because of this, our lungs have to fight off bacteria, viruses and pollutants, and yet try to function normally to help us breathe.  Asked to name a respiratory virus, our mind immediately jumps to influenza, the big daddy of viruses that affect our lung. Yet, there is a virus that […]

Bats are the stealth bombers of the animal kingdom. Equipped with radar-like echolocation, the dark form of the bat allows this creature to stay in the shadows before launching into attack on its unsuspecting prey. Scientists are now increasingly interested in bats for the biological payloads they carry: these include highly pathogenic viruses such as Ebola, rabies, and SARS. After rodents, bats are the second most numerous mammal species on earth. The increasing interaction between bats and […]

So is this anti-vaccine drivel targeted towards the vaccines themselves? Or distrust to the companies that make these vaccines?  There’s a saying allegedly attributed to Stalin that “the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic”. Nearly all of the anti-vaccine arguments I’ve seen online include parents talking about the one kid of theirs that they know suffered because of their vaccination. Definitely a tragedy. But what about the millions […]

The leading killer of humanity, and indeed of most species on earth has not been war or famine. Rather, the cause of death has been infectious disease. Infectious diseases have altered the nature of species, controlled the success or failure of organisms in a given environment, and indeed, been crucial to the evolution of a myriad of organisms itself. The bubonic plague, which ravaged medieval Europe and killed a majority of the populace, resulted in the selection of a certain group of people […]