The best hospitals have more superbugs. Do patients have a right to know?

The premier hospitals tend to have the most superbugs — they also have the best experts.

  • Many of the best hospitals also have superbugs within their walls.
  • One medical dilemma is whether to tell patients about a superbug's presence: will it inhibit them from seeking care?
  • The best hospitals may have the most superbugs, but they also have the experts who know how to treat patients sickened by bacteria, and possess some of the most powerful antibiotics around.
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These simple habits can optimize your gut and brain bacteria

What you eat — and when — can make you superhuman.

  • The importance of the microbiome has really come to the fore in the last five years. Viome, a company that analyzed the feces of 100,000 people, has discovered 10,000 new types of gut bacteria.
  • Additionally, Improved imaging technology led scientists to discover you don't have just one microbiome, you have two. The second one is in your brain, populated by the same bacteria that live in your gut.
  • Simple habits can foster healthy gut and brain bacteria, which can help you live longer and age more slowly. Eat mostly vegetables, take fiber and prebiotics, and practice intermittent fasting, says Dave Asprey.
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Belly fat: Gut bacteria checks could lead to personalized diets

The reason one diet does not suit all may be found in our guts.

Media for Medical / Getty Images
  • New research shows that there's no one diet that works for everyone.
  • Instead, gut bacteria may hold the key to personalized diet plans.
  • A future doctor may check gut bacteria to offer diet advice.
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A new spray may help treat the deadly white-nose syndrome

Bats are being subjected to a deadly plague that may be threatening their existence. However, a new bacterial spray may help fight the fungus responsible.

Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash
  • Since 2006, white-nose syndrome has killed millions and millions of bats, threatening many species with extinction.
  • Bats may not be everybody's idea of a cute and cuddly animal, but losing them would be devastating to the ecosystem.
  • Fortunately, researchers are hard at work trying to uncover a means of dealing with this fungal disease. One such treatment is the use of the antifungal bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens.
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This bacteria can withstand 1,000X as much radiation as would kill a human

Meet Deinococcus radioduranst, the world's toughest bacteria.

Flickr user EMSL
  • The bacteria is so resilient that it's been found on the walls of nuclear reactors.
  • It's unique properties have fascinated scientists, who have proposed all kinds of applications for the bacteria that range from the practical to the whimsical.
  • How does this supertough bacteria withstand radiation that would kill anything else, though?
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