SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
Biomedicine: Food-borne Disease, Gut Bacteria and Real-Time Protein Folding
A former Food and Drug Administration economist last week estimated that food-borne illnesses in the U.S. cost $152 billion annually, or an average of $1,850 each time someone gets sick from food.
In other biomedical news, the American Cancer Society recommended that men should think twice before getting screened for prostate cancer because the blood test can give false positives.
Meanwhile, an international team of researchers published a catalog of the millions of genes found in human gut microbes, and has begun to identify differences in the bacterial genes present in healthy versus chronically sick people.
In a biomedical first, biologists have peered into living cells and watched proteins folding—something they could previously observe only in vitro. The new technique could improve drug screening and provide insights to diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Finally, the Boston Globe looked at two new studies that fuel the controversy over whether young athletes should routinely be given electrocardiograms to screen for subtle but potentially fatal heart conditions.
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