From SARS to swine flu, virus outbreaks can be unpredictable -- and devastating. But now a new application through the ubiquitous social networking site Facebook, developed in a Tel Aviv University lab, is poised to serve as a better indicator of how infections spread among populations.

The same trait that makes a rare immune cell invaluable in fighting some infections also can be exploited by other diseases to cause harm, two new studies show.

Researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Texas at Austin have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight seasonal influenza epidemics caused by the common influenza B strain.

Hepatitis G virus was identified in 1995. Some little research was carried out on the virus, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared it a non-harmful virus in 1997.

Researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have discovered a molecular process by which the body can defend against the effects of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), pointing the way to a promising new approach for treating an intestinal disease that has become more common, more severe and harder to cure in recent years.