Lyme disease is an infectious condition spread by ticks that affects as many as 300,000 people in the US every year, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Today’s treatment is largely effective in treating the infection, but a good portion of patients do not respond and go on to endure lingering symptoms. A new study has revealed that an already-approved antibiotic can completely eliminate the underlying bacteria that causes the disease in mice, offering new hope of a more comprehensive therapy for humans.

While the standard antibiotics used to treat Lyme disease do the job for the majority of patients, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent go on to experience its symptoms. These include muscle pain, fatigue, fever, headaches and heart problems. There are couple of theories for why this might be.

“Some researchers think this may be due to drug-tolerant bacteria living in the body and continuing to cause disease,” said study author Jayakumar Rajadas. “Others believe it’s an immune disorder caused by bacteria during the first exposure, which causes a perpetual inflammation condition. Whatever the cause, the pain for patients is still very real.”

Uncertainty and fear about coronavirus’ spread and the course of the illness is causing shockwaves in our daily lives. A simple paper test could provide answers to basic questions and shape a sensible course forward.

And others in the research community, like this nuclear physicist at the Large Hadron Collider, are realizing how close they came to catching the virus.

The first COVID-19 case may have started as early as November 17. A good chunk of my reararch group, and our particular slice of the nuclear physics community, were literally in Wuhan until just a week before this. To think what could have been… https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coro…raced-back

— Dennis V. Perepelitsa (@dvperepelitsa) March 13, 2020

Coronavirus Research : A recent study published on an open platform but has yet to be peer reviewed caught our eyes as it was strangely conducted by the prestigious Spiez Laboratory In Switzerland by a team of leading virologists and microbiologists, but what intrigued me was that why would a prestigious research centre like the Spiez laboratory that had enormous funds and had some of the leading specialist post a ‘half-baked’ research on an open platform?

Echinacea Flowers

Scientists have struggled to develop new antibiotics. Enter: the machines.