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| SHEEP VIRUS MAY CREEP FURTHER SOUTH |
| New strains of the bluetongue virus, which may spread through Australia's cattle and sheep populations, have been picked up by a disease monitoring program. |
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| BIRD FLU TESTS MAY OUTDATE QUICKLY |
| Diagnostic tests for the bird flu virus may need to be fine-tuned if the virus mutates quickly, according to Australian scientists. |
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| BACTERIA-EATING VIRUS MADE IN RECORD TIME |
| An artificial bacteria-eating virus has been made from synthetic genes in the record time of just two weeks. |
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| US DEVELOPS LETHAL NEW VIRUSES |
| A scientist funded by the US government has deliberately created an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering. The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs as well as a vaccine that would normally protect them. |
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| WASP AND VIRUS ALLIANCE BEAT MOTH |
| A parasitic wasp that injects its eggs into the leek moth - a serious agricultural pest - also adds a lethal virus that stops the moth’s immune system from harming the eggs, according to a new study. |
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| SARS ORIGIN A MYSTERY, RE-BIRTH FEARED |
| Despite the discovery of animals in a Chinese live-meat market infected with a virus similar to the one that caused the global SARS outbeak, the source of the disease remains a mystery. |
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| SOME VIRUSES FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET |
| Some viruses use violent force to explosively inject their genes into prey, exerting pent-up pressure greater than that of a powerful airgun, an American-French study has found. |
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| MYSTERY VIRUS PUSHING INDIAN VULTURES TO EXTINCTION |
| Vultures were almost as common as sparrows in India. But the arrival of a mystery virus a decade ago has wiped out 95% of the species, and some scientists believe the gawky birds are on the brink of extinction. |
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| SARS: LESSONS FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM |
| The SARS virus probably originated in animals and may have lost the ability to infect its original host - increasing the possibility it can be eliminated in humans, says a U.S. virus expert. But an animal origin also has implications for the spread of the disease. |
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| ALARM AS KILLER VIRUS SPREADS, RESIDENTS FLEE. |
| Medical teams descended on a Hong Kong apartment block on Tuesday to find out why a virus thought to cause atypical pneumonia has spread like wildfire, as fears grow it has mutated into an airborne infection. |
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| NU PROFESSOR WORKS TOWARD A PERMANENTLY GERM-FREE SURFACE: POLYMER GLASS COATING CAPABLE OF KILLING AIRBORNE BACTERIA ON CONTACT |
| Whose hands were on that doorknob before yours? That handrail, pay phone, or subway pole? Kim Lewis, newly appointed professor of biology at Northeastern University in Boston, has worked with scientists at M.I.T. and Tufts University to ease our germ-fearing minds about this very thing. In their research, they demonstrate that covalent attachment of N-alkylated poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PVP) to glass surfaces can make surfaces permanently lethal to several types of bacteria on contact. |
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| COMPLEX MOLECULE FOUND IN SPACE |
| The compound vinyl alcohol has been found in space, raising hopes of clues to the origin of complex organic molecules. The molecule was found in an interstellar cloud of dust and gas near the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy by radio astronomers using the National Science Foundation's 12 Meter Telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona. |
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| WHEN ANTIBODIES TURN AGAINST YOU |
| Australian immunologists have found that the Ross River virus uses antibodies, which normally neutralise viral invaders, to its own advantage. |
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