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Grylloblattidae

Grylloblattidae is a family of extremophile and wingless insects that live in the cold on top of mountains. They are commonly called grylloblattids, but are also sometimes called ice crawlers or icebugs. Most are nocturnal and appear to feed on d ...

Halophile

Halophiles are organisms that need salt in their environment to live. Halophiles live in evaporation ponds or salt lakes such as Great Salt Lake, Owens Lake, or Dead Sea. The name "halophile" comes from Greek for "salt-loving". Most halophiles ar ...

Loricifera

Loricifera is a recently discovered ecdysozoan phylum of marine animals. The phylum includes the first animals known to exist in a completely anoxic environment. The phylum was described in 1983 by Reinhardt Kristensen. They are a phylum of very ...

Polychaete

Polychaetes, or bristle worms, are a class of annelid worms. They are generally found in a marine environment. There are more than 10.000 known species in this class. They are ancient animals, dating back to 518 million years ago. They are first ...

Rotifer

The rotifers are a phylum of tiny animals which are common in freshwater environments, such as ponds and puddles. Some rotifers are free swimming, others move by inching along, and some are fixed. A few species live in colonies.

Tardigrade

Tardigrades are the members of the tactopod phylum Tardigrada, part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. They are also known as water bears or moss piglets. They are microscopic, water-dwelling, segmented animals. Tardigrades were first described in 177 ...

Protozoa

Protozoa are small organisms. They are single-celled heterotrophic eukaryotes, which eat bacteria and other food sources. It is an old term, and the wider term protist is generally preferred today. However, protozoa is often used for convenience, ...

Amoeba

Amoeba is a well known genus of unicellular organism, a protist. One of its most common species, the Amoeba Proteus, is about 0.2 to 0.3 mm large. The amoeba was first discovered by August Von Rosenhof in 1757. It is a genus of protozoa that move ...

Amoeboid movement

Amoeboid movement is the most common type of movement in eukaryotic cells. It is a crawling type of movement got by pushing out cell cytoplasm in the form of pseudopodia "false feet". The cytoplasm slides and forms a pseudopodium in front to move ...

Amoebozoa

The Amoebozoa are a eukaryote phylum of Amoeba -like protozoa. Most move by internal cytoplasmic flow. Their finger-like pseudopodia are characteristic. They are a major group with about 2.400 described species of amoeboid protists. In most class ...

Archamoebae

The Archamoebae are an important group of amoebae. They are unusual among protists because they have no mitochondria. The group includes many genera which are internal parasites or commensals of animals: for example Entamoeba and Endolimax. Some ...

Conosa

The Conosa is one of three subphyla in the Amoebozoa. It is subdivided into two infraphyla – the Mycetozoa and the Archamoebae. Archamoebae: distinguishing mark: they have no mitochondria. Mycetozoa: a group of slime moulds. Conosa includes the s ...

Plasmodium

Plasmodium, commonly known as the malaria parasite, is a large genus of parasitic protozoa. There are about 200 species. Infection with these protozoans is called malaria, a deadly disease widespread in the tropics. The parasite always has two ho ...

Trypanosoma

Trypanosoma is a genus of parasitic protozoa. There are in the class Kinetoplastida. They are a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa. All trypanosomes are need more than one particular host to complete life cycle. Most ...

Coronavirus

Coronaviruses are a group of RNA viruses. They cause diseases in birds and mammals, including humans. These diseases can be mild, or they can be fatal. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections. Mild illnesses in humans include ...

MERS

MERS was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It is a disease caused by a coronavirus whose label is MERS-CoV. MERS-CoV is a betacoronavirus which originated in bats. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses some of which cause common colds. They can ...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome

Severe acute respiratory syndrome was an atypical pneumonia. It started in November 2002 in Guangdong Province, in the city of Foshan, of the Peoples Republic of China. The disease was caused by the SARS coronavirus, a new coronavirus. It was als ...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

SARS coronavirus 2 is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA coronavirus which causes the disease COVID-19.It used to be known as 2019 novel coronavirus by the World Health Organization. The virus started the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak. The firs ...

2014 Ebola virus cases in the United States

On September 30, 2014, the first case of Ebola virus disease was diagnosed in the United States. It came from a 42-year-old Liberian national, Thomas Eric Duncan. Even before Duncans diagnosis, three Americans had been medically evacuated from Af ...

AIDS

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is a disease caused by a virus called HIV. Acquired means that people are not born with the disease. They get it after being infected with the HIV virus. Deficiency means n ...

Bird flu

Bird flu, is an illness caused by a virus. The virus, called influenza A or type A, usually lives in birds, but sometimes infects mammals, including humans. It is called influenza when it infects humans. There are many types of influenza A, which ...

Bronchiolitis

Bronchiolitis is a medical condition where the smaller parts of the lung are irritated. This makes it very hard to move air in and out of the lungs. Many things can cause bronchiolitis. The most common is the respiratory syncytial virus. The dise ...

Cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is cancer of the cervix. It is caused by a virus called human papillomavirus. It is a serious medical problem and sometimes causes malignance and death. One sign of cervical cancer is bleeding or discharge from the vagina. Sometim ...

Chickenpox

Chickenpox, also known as chicken pox, is a disease. Usually, it is children who get the disease, but adults can also get it. People who have it get blisters or spots, mostly on the body and in the face. Those blisters are filled with a liquid. A ...

Chikungunya

Chikungunya is an infection caused by the chikungunya virus. It can cause joint pains that can last for weeks, months, or sometimes even years. About 1 in every 1000 people who gets chikungunya dies. People who are elderly or have other medical p ...

Colorado tick fever

Colorado tick fever is a viral infection transmitted from the bite of an infected Rocky Mountain wood tick. It should not be confused with the bacterial tick-borne infection, Rocky Mountain spotted fever. CTF is transmitted to humans most commonl ...

Common cold

The common cold is caused by viruses. It spreads easily, so it is very infectious. The symptoms are mostly in the upper respiratory system. Its damage is mostly felt in the nose and throat. The symptoms include coughs, painful throat, runny nose ...

Dengue fever

Dengue fever is a tropical infectious disease caused by the dengue virus. People get the dengue virus from mosquitoes. Dengue fever is also called break-bone fever, because it can cause so much pain that people feel like their bones are breaking. ...

Ebola virus

Ebola virus is a very dangerous virus. It belongs to the family Filoviridae and is responsible for a severe disease characterized by the sudden onset of hemorrhagic fever accompanied by other non specific signs and symptoms. "Hemorrhagic" means t ...

Glandular fever

Glandular fever is a viral infection caused by the Epstein–Barr virus. Glandular fever is often spread through oral acts such as kissing which is why it is sometimes called "the kissing disease". However, glandular fever can also be spread by air ...

Hand, foot and mouth disease

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease is a human disease which is caused by a strain of Coxsackie A virus. Symptoms include: Mouth lesions Body rash Painful mouth sores General discomfort aches and pains Headache Fever Loss of appetite Sore throat Vomitin ...

Hepatitis

Hepatitis is a disease of the liver. In hepatitis, the liver is inflamed. There can be several reasons why the liver is inflamed. For this reason there are several kinds of hepatitis. The most common forms are Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and Hepatit ...

Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is an infection of the liver caused by the hepatitis A virus. Unlike the other common forms of hepatitis, it does not cause chronic liver disease.

Hepatitis B

Hepatitis B is a disease of the liver. It is caused by a virus. The virus is not spread by food or casual contact. It can be spread by blood or body fluids from an infected person. A baby can get it from its mother during childbirth. It can also ...

Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is an infection that mostly affects the liver. The hepatitis C virus causes this disease. Often, a person with Hepatitis C does not have any symptoms. However, chronic infection can scar the liver. Many years of infection may cause ci ...

Herpes simplex

The herpes simplex virus is a virus. It causes two common diseases. Both diseases have painful, watery blisters in the skin or mucous membranes or on the genitals. The disease is contagious, particularly when the disease is active. Contagious mea ...

Herpes zoster

Herpes zoster is a disease in humans. The same virus that causes chickenpox also causes shingles. The symptoms are pain and a rash with blisters. The shingles vaccine reduces the risk of shingles. Antivirus medicine can reduce the seriousness and ...

Hodgkins lymphoma

Hodgkins lymphoma, also known as Hodgkins disease, is a cancer of the lymphatic system, also known as a lymphoma. It was first discovered by Thomas Hodgkin in 1832. It is one of many kinds of cancers of the lymphatic system. Most of the time, the ...

Influenza

Influenza, better known as the flu and sometimes called the grippe, is a common childhood illness, but is not as common among adults. It is not limited to humans, most mammals and many birds can also catch influenza. It is caused by several diffe ...

Influenza pandemic of 1918

The Influenza pandemic of 1918 was a serious pandemic of influenza. It lasted for three years, from January 1918 to December 1920. About 500 million people were infected across the world with a population of 1.80 billion people. The pandemic spre ...

Lassa fever

Lassa fever or Lassa hemorrhagic fever is a fever caused by the Lassa virus. It is common in West Africa. One in 80 people who get Lassa fever will die. Some cases are severe and require going to a hospital. These cases have a death rate of 1 in ...

Measles

Measles is an infectious disease, caused by a virus. People catch measles from other people. It is passed on in tiny drops of water when people breathe. People with measles have a sore throat, a fever, a cough, red eyes and a runny nose. They als ...

Nipah virus disease

Nipah virus disease is a disease caused by a dangerous virus. This virus belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family and causes severe disease in humans, where approximately half of all patients die. The virus is commonly transmitted by fruit eating bats.

Poliomyelitis

Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a virus that causes a serious disease. It is spread from person to person. Most of the time, polio has no symptoms unless the polio virus gets into the blood. It is uncommon for the virus to enter the brain or spinal c ...

Rabies

Rabies is a neurotropic virus, viral zoonotic disease that causes acute encephalitis. Usually, people and animals die from it is fatal. There is no cure for it. People who are treated soon after becoming infected have a chance to survive. The dis ...

Reassortment

Reassortment is mixing of the genetic material of a species into new combinations in different individuals. There are several ways this happens. The term is used when two similar viruses infecting the same cell exchange genetic material. In parti ...

Swine influenza

Swine influenza virus is a virus that is common in pigs. This type of influenza virus can also infect humans and birds. Swine influenza virus is sometimes called SIV or swine flu. Swine flu is common in pigs. Normally, it only infects people who ...

Wart

Warts are growths on the skin. Very often they resemble solid blisters. Usually, applying pressure to a wart causes pain. Warts are caused by viruses in the HPV family. As there are many types of viruses in the HPV family, there are also many typ ...

Yellow fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The illness can cause bleeding problems. It is called yellow because it makes the skin and the eyes yellow in color, like jaundice. There is a vaccine which c ...

Zika fever

Zika fever is an illness caused by the Zika virus. The Zika virus belongs to the genus Flavivirus, like dengue fever and chikungunya. However, Zika fever is usually not as bad as those illnesses. Most people who get the Zika virus have no symptom ...