Explore how zoonotic diseases, from the Neolithic era to modern hantavirus outbreaks, have shaped humanity. Virologist ...

Avian influenza can jump species from birds to humans, a fact that arouses concern for serious illness and broader human ...

A study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology is the first comprehensive approach to detect all known ...

The Human Virome Program will analyze samples from thousands of volunteers in an effort to understand how viruses affect health. By Carl Zimmer The viruses we know best are the ones that make us sick ...

A new University of California San Diego study published in Cell challenges a long-standing assumption about how animal viruses become capable of sparking human epidemics and pandemics. Using a ...

For over a decade, scientists have studied the microbiome, the environment of microorganisms that live on and in the body, and how it affects health and disease. Much less is known about a part of the ...

Distinguishing between self and non-self is a critical ability of the immune system. Some pathogens have evolved proteins that resemble those of their host, a mechanism called molecular mimicry, in an ...

Scientists have long known that a significant portion of the human genome is made up of the remnants of ancient viruses; these sequences are a subset of transposable elements known as endogenous ...

We often hear about the importance of the human microbiome – the vast collection of bacteria and fungi that live on and inside us – when it comes to our health. But there’s another, equally important ...