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Likewise, restriction enzymes are a dangerous defense, because they can chop up the distinctive stretches of DNA in a bacterium’s own genes. It avoids attacking itself by capping those sequences in its own DNA, so that the restriction enzymes can’t reach them.

Some species can muck up the production of new viruses, stealing their proteins before they can form shells. Others commit suicide upon infection, so as to avoid becoming an incubator for new viruses that would then kill their nearby relatives.

CRISPR genes can produce RNA molecules with a matching sequence. They grab onto the virus’s RNA and prevent them from being turned into proteins. The virus factory grinds to a halt.

“We have a very serious problem, and we need to sound an alarm.”

Healthcare institutions in 42 states have now identified at least one case of CRE. The occurrence of this resistance in the overall family of bacteria has risen at least four-fold over 10 years. In the CDC’s surveillance networks, 4.6 percent of hospitals and 17.8 percent of long-term care facilities diagnosed this bug in the first half of 2012.

CRE stands for “carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.” Enterobacteriaceae are a family of more than 70 bacteria which share the characteristic of being gut-dwelling (“entero”)

HPV infection is the most common sexually transmitted disease — between 75 percent and 80 percent of females and males in the United States will be infected at some point in their lives. Most will overcome the infection with no ill effects. But in some people, infections lead to cellular changes that cause warts or cancer, including cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers in women and anal cancers in men and women. A growing body of evidence suggests that HPV also causes throat cancers in men and women as a result of oral sex. HPV infections cause about 15,000 cancers in women and 7,000 cancers in men each year. And while cervical cancer rates have plunged over the past four decades because of widespread screening, anal cancer rates in men and women have been increasing. Head and neck cancers have also been increasing, with the share associated with HPV infection increasing rapidly — perhaps because oral sex has increased in popularity.

The strategy worked so well, Dr. Hopkins said, that Sierra Leone was smallpox-free in less than two years.

When programs are well run, he said, progress can be rapid; Ghana went from 501 cases to none in 18 months.

the tiny sponges mimic red blood cells, and are able to soak up lethal toxins – including snake venom and bacteria – from the bloodstream.

The nanosponges are made up of a biocompatible polymer core, which is coated with segments of the host’s red blood cell membranes.

each nanosponge is 3,000 times smaller than a red blood cell

The lecithin study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, is part of a growing appreciation of the role the body’s bacteria play in health and disease. With heart disease, investigators have long focused on the role of diet and heart disease, but expanding the scrutiny to bacteria adds a new dimension.

“Heart disease perhaps involves microbes in our gut,”