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: Infectious Diseases Society of America Date: 2005-12-15 New Study Identifies Louse-borne Diseases That Ravaged Napoleon's Army Using dental pulp extracted from the teeth of soldiers who died during Napoleon’s disastrous retreat through Russia in 1812, a new study finds DNA evidence that epidemic typhus and trench fever ran rampant among the French Grand Army. The study, published in the Jan. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, identifies the specific species of louse-borne pathogens that were a major cause of death among the remains of the retreating army. Napoleon marched into Russia in the summer...

<p>Human body lice appear to owe their origin to the invention of clothing, and the types that reside on our bodies appear to have hitchhiked along as modern humans migrated out of Africa about 100,000 years ago.</p> <p>Mark Stoneking and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, made the connection between the origin of clothing and the rise of human body lice by checking so-called molecular clocks found in the cells of all living creatures.</p>

Illustration by Michael Rothman Before An Australopithecus, sporting full-bodied fur about four million years ago. After An archaic human walked fur-free about 1.2 million years ago, carrying fire on the savanna ONE of the most distinctive evolutionary changes as humans parted company from their fellow apes was their loss of body hair. But why and when human body hair disappeared, together with the matter of when people first started to wear clothes, are questions that have long lain beyond the reach of archaeology and paleontology. Ingenious solutions to both issues have now been proposed, independently, by two research groups analyzing...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. STATESBORO, Ga. - Like a tiny gilded menagerie, 3,000 gold-covered ticks stand upright in active positions on dime-sized platforms. Nearby is one of the most complete repositories of written knowledge on the tick, dating back to Homer, 800 B.C. Hundreds of thousands more of the bloodsucking creatures are tucked away in government-issue metal filing cabinets. The Smithsonian's little-known U.S. National Tick Collection is stored in a former home-economics demonstration house at Georgia Southern University. The collection's curators, the world's foremost authorities of tick identification, are in charge of more than 1...

actual LOOOOOOOOOONG title: "Climate change will make us more likely to wet the bed and may trigger a plague of ticks, snakes and VOLES as 'devastating' droughts and flooding send nature haywire by 2100"

Typhus is on the rise in Los Angeles, with its epicenter in downtown, where the city’s sanitation officials are struggling to respond to the nearly two thousand “cleanup requests” they get from locals every month. Like San Francisco, LA is struggling to clean up city streets of human waste—specifically feces—due to a lack of public restrooms and a growing homeless population. There was an average of 700 requests in the area in the spring of 2016, but officials now claim they receive about 1,900 cleanup calls per month thanks to the number of growing homeless camps. But the growing homelessness...

Who doesn't love a juicy burger? About 5,000 Americans. And not from dietary preference, but because a single bite could cause hives, shortness of breath, or even death. It's not something they were born with, it's something their body was taught to reject, by an uninvited little wilderness hitchhiker. The following is a transcript of the video. Imagine that you're a red-blooded carnivore. You love burgers, steak, pork chops, bacon. But one day, out of nowhere, red meat starts to make you physically sick to the stomach. It sounds like science fiction, but it's real, and it's spreading. It's spreading...

A tick species that's native to Asia has now spread to the United States, and it's popping up in numerous places along the East Coast, according to U.S. officials. Females can reproduce asexually and lay thousands of eggs. Female longhorned ticks don't need a male to reproduce. They can spawn asexually using a process known as parthenogenesis. After feeding, a single female can lay around 2,000 eggs, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. That's enough to establish a tick population in a new location, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says. They suck so much blood, it can cause...

Crissy Brownstein Naticchia told The Mighty that her husband of 23 years was diagnosed with Babesia, a tick-born illness that quickly attacks the red blood cells. His diagnosis came after the 50-year-old had come down with an intense fever that eventually landed him in the Intensive Care Unit. However, because it took six days for her husband to get the correct diagnosis, he never recovered. Naticchia's husband unexpectedly passed away the day after his diagnosis. According to Fox 2, scientists have recently discovered an exotic tick species in the United States, specifically in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. It is not...

The number of Americans sickened each year by bites from infected mosquitoes, ticks or fleas tripled from 2004 through 2016, with infection rates spiking sharply in 2016 as a result of a Zika outbreak, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday. Infections in 2016 went up 73 percent from 2015, reflecting the emergence of Zika, which is transmitted by mosquitoes and can cause severe birth defects. Zika was the most common disease borne by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas reported in 2016, with 41,680 cases reported, followed by Lyme disease, with 36,429 cases, almost double the number in 2004.

13-year old Olivia Goodreau has been living with Lyme disease for half her life. She joined me today to tell her story from the tick bite to a myriad of symptoms to visiting 51 doctors before being diagnosed with the tick-borne disease. Olivia also talked about her nonprofit organization, LivLyme Foundation, which supports the work of researchers and scientists who are dedicated to finding the effective treatment for Lyme disease and ultimately finding the cure. We also talk about the TickTracker app, her idea which allows you to track & report ticks in real-time with geolocation. Jeff Stauffer, Founder of...

Mosquito bites are bothersome enough, but when you consider risks, like getting sick with Zika, dengue, or chikungunya, it’s important that you choose an insect repellent that works well and that you feel comfortable regularly using. Protect yourself when traveling: Learn about country-specific travel advice, health risks, and how to stay safe by visiting CDC Travelers’ Health website. Use insect repellent: Use an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered insect repellent with one of the following active ingredients. When used as directed, EPA-registered insect repellents are proven safe and effective, even for pregnant and breastfeeding women.DEETPicaridin, also known as KBR 3023, Bayrepel,...

Ahead of what is projected to be one of the worst summers for tick-borne diseases in years in Westchester and Rockland Counties, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer today urged, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to double-down on efforts to fully implement new laws, passed by Congress last year, that will significantly increase research, vaccine development and treatment strategies to help stamp out tick-borne diseases like Lyme disease. Schumer said any delay in federal action will allow newly emerging disease like Powassan, which is even deadlier than Lyme disease, to impact already highly vulnerable areas...

MARSHFIELD, Vt. (AP) — Tick numbers are on the rise across New England, raising the prospect of an increase in Lyme and other diseases associated with the blood suckers. Much of the region got a respite last year as the drought took a toll on ticks, whose numbers drop as the humidity falls below 85 percent. But the drought is largely gone from the region and ticks are taking advantage. Residents in Maine are complaining they are finding as many as 30 ticks at a time on their clothes, and public health officials in Vermont are reporting an above-average rate...

WASHINGTON – The Centers for Disease Control is warning of the emergence of a far deadlier tick-related virus than Lyme Disease – one that kills 10 percent of those infected and permanently disables the other 50 percent. It’s called POW for short, or Powassan, and it, like Lyme, is carried by deer. Recent cases have been noted in the Northeast U.S. and the Great Lakes states. The virus can cause inflammation of the brain, leading to death in 10 percent of cases and permanent disability in 50 percent of cases. Signs and symptoms of infection can include fever, headache, vomiting,...

As if Lyme disease isn't troubling enough, a more serious tick-borne disease may be emerging, experts warn. Powassan virus, which is a far rarer and more deadly pathogen than the bacterium that produces Lyme, is also transmitted by the deer tick. The virus can cause inflammation in the brain, which leads to death or permanent disability in 60 percent of cases.

Mild winters and big deer and mice populations mean more ticks and higher rates of Lyme disease diagnoses. Milder winters, burgeoning mice and deer populations and a bumper acorn crop from two years ago mean this year’s tick season is expected to be bad and more widespread, experts say. With that comes the threat of more tick-borne diseases, including the most common, Lyme disease. States like Connecticut—home to the town of Old Lyme where the disease was first diagnosed—are already reporting a higher number of ticks infected with the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium, which causes Lyme disease, as well as other...

2017 could be a record year for ticks and tick-borne illnesses according to one researcher who studies the arachnids in Alabama. "I would say this is going to be a very bad tick year because it was a very mild winter," said Tim Sellati, chair of Southern Research's Infectious Diseases Department. In addition, Sellati said a warming climate has let certain species of ticks expand their range and those changes are reflected in tick surveys in Alabama and other parts of the United States. "The winters are warmer and the ticks recognize this, they sense this change in their environment,"...

Kris Kristofferson has been battling memory loss for several years, but his condition has taken a marked turn for the better due to a surprising diagnosis. Doctors have been telling Kristofferson that his worsening memory loss was caused either by Alzheimer’s or by dementia that was brought on by blows to the head he suffered in his athletic youth, when he took regular part in rough sports including football, boxing and rugby. The iconic singer-songwriter and actor tells Rolling Stone Country that it got so bad, he sometimes couldn’t remember what he was doing from one moment to the next....

Dr. Stone was eventually able to determine that Ollie’s sickness was caused by a very rare condition called tick paralysis........... A 10-year-old dog named Ollie is alive today thanks to a Portland, Oregon-based DoveLewis Animal Hospital intern who found a tick hidden in his ear, moments before the veterinarian was to euthanise the sick dog. Ollie’s owners, Al and Joelle, decided to put the dog to sleep after noticing his rapidly failing health after returning home from a trip to the Umpqua River, according to a statement from DoveLewis Animal Hospital. “We were at a complete loss,” said Al, the...