A comment I replied to on LinkedIn which I thought was worth expanding on here – a rare moment of clarity pre-coffee. Scientists don’t engage the community while wearing their scientist hat Read More …
..whatever your shape, colour, gender, sex, size, beliefs, weight or disposition, I wish you a happy festive season. May 2017 be a better year for those of us who wish Read More …
The first human parechoviruses (HPeVs) were initially called Human echovirus 22 (HPeV-1) and Human echovirus 23 (HPeV-2).[11,12] These guys were discovered in the summer of 1956, but they weren’t officially Read More …
The very steep rises in Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases seen in the graph below are not due to overwhelming numbers of new exposures to infected camels. Those upwards inclines Read More …
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR, described here) works mainly because of two components – a heat-stable DNA polymerase enzyme (adds new nucleotides to a chain of nucleotides) and a pair Read More …
This builds on my smaller page of MERS-CoV themed wannabe memes found here. These were all made by me but feel free to use if they suit a purpose (a link/reference Read More …
For an organism or a virus, to grow or replicate, it must make new pieces of itself and assemble those pieces into something functional. Let’s take a short walk through Read More …
More than 100 serologically distinct types (serotypes) and another 50 or more genotypically defined and distinct types (genotypes) of human rhinovirus (RV; Greek rhin = nose) exist within the genus Enterovirus. Read More …
A list of the viruses we can and do detect in the (mostly upper) human respiratory tract. The standard testing panel/diagnostic menu comprises the influenza A and B viruses, parainfluenza Read More …
With HPeV infections generally around during summer (see specific earlier story arising from cases in babies from New South Wales), it’s well worth mirroring the advice from NSW health on parechovirus Read More …
The parechoviruses (HPeVs; par -echo-virus) don’t make the headlines too often. I’m not sure why but I expect it is mostly because they are (a) not frequently sought and (b) not frequently found. That Read More …
With measles cases prominent in the news of late, there have been a few interesting reports and interviews from Queensland’s local Acting Senior Director for Communicable Diseases, Dr Stephen Lambert. The measles Read More …