Category: Pestilences

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A medical professional wearing a protective face and equipment performs a test on a patient who is waiting inline to be tested for COVID-19 at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, N.Y., in March 2020. A new study suggests that rats in the city and other urban areas can carry COVID-19 variants. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

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A researcher works inside a laboratory during the development of a vaccine in a file photo. (Reithera/Handout via Reuters)

Using a nose clip while swimming in a warm freshwater lake can prevent problems with parasites “outside the danger zone.” (Todd Quackenbush/Unsplash)

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A hidden danger is set to dampen the enjoyment of boating, swimming, and other aquatic sports in freshwater lakes and rivers during America’s summer months.

Dust rises as a farmer plows a field in Mendota, Calif., in the state’s San Joaquin Valley on March 11, 2009. Dust carries spores that cause valley fever, a growing problem in the southwestern states. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

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A microscopic fungal organism in the soil called coccidioides is becoming more mainstream due to a rise in human infections resulting from airborne spores thrown aloft by winds in the arid terrain.