CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 11, 2016) - By identifying new compounds that selectively block mitochondrial respiration in pathogenic fungi, Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a potential antifungal mechanism that could enable combination therapy with fluconazole, one of today's most commonly prescribed fungal infection treatments. The approach could also prevent the development of drug resistance.

Although diseases of the heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular disease, CVD) kill more people worldwide than anything else, with 17.3 million deaths globally, cancer has now overtaken CVD as the main cause of death in 12 European countries.

New data on the burden of CVD in Europe for 2016, which are published today (Monday) in the European Heart Journal [1], show that in the European region (defined as the 53 member states of the World Health Organisation) CVD caused more than four million deaths each year, 45% of all deaths. However, success in preventing and treating the disease has led to large decreases in CVD in a number of countries.

Researchers have discovered that secondary infection with the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium (or "superbug") often kills influenza patients because the flu virus alters the antibacterial response of white blood cells, causing them to damage the patients' lungs instead of destroying the bacterium. The study, which will be published online August 15 ahead of issue in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, suggests that inhibiting this response may help treat patients infected with both the flu virus and MRSA.

Too much cholesterol used to be bad for you. Then some cholesterol was good for you. Now too little cholesterol is bad for you.

A giant chunk of the public no longer trusts science, because scientists have not yet put epidemiology over with the social sciences and the humanities on the credibility scale. Using epidemiology, everything can both cause and prevent cancer.

Lie on the beach this summer and your body will be bombarded by about sextillion photons of light per second.

Most of these photons, or small packets of energy, originate from the Sun but a very small fraction have travelled across the Universe for billions of years before ending their existence when they collide with your skin.

In a new study to be published in the Astrophysical Journal on August 12th, astronomers have accurately measured the light hitting the Earth from outside our galaxy over a very broad wavelength range.

Black children and young adults are about half as likely as their white counterparts to get mental health care despite having similar rates of mental health problems, according to a study published today [Friday, Aug. 12] in the International Journal of Health Services. Hispanic youth also get only half as much mental health care as whites.

The study used data on children under 18 and young adults 18-34 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey covering all 50 states for the years 2006-2012. It found that minorities received much less of virtually all types of mental health care, including visits to psychiatrists, social workers and psychologists, as well as substance abuse counseling and mental health counseling by pediatricians and other doctors.

A new study correlates Finland's national tobacco policies - less smoking, more snus, for those addicted to nicotine - seem to be radically reducing the incidence of subarachnoid hemorrhage, the most fatal form of stroke.

Previously it was thought that in Finland approximately a thousand people suffer subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) every year - most of them adults of working age. Up to half of those afflicted die within a year. Subarachnoid hemorrhage is typically caused by a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, which leads to a sudden increase in the intracranial pressure. Smoking is a key risk factor for SAH and lots of other diseases, whereas nicotine, the addictive component, is not. 

Plant scientists at the University of Cambridge have found that the cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) alters gene expression in the tomato plants it infects, causing changes to air-borne chemicals - the scent - emitted by the plants. Bees can smell these subtle changes, and glasshouse experiments have shown that bumblebees prefer infected plants over healthy ones.

Scientists say that by indirectly manipulating bee behaviour to improve pollination of infected plants by changing their scent, the virus is effectively paying its host back. This may also benefit the virus: helping to spread the pollen of plants susceptible to infection and, in doing so, inhibiting the chance of virus-resistant plant strains emerging.