Silver is an age-old, effective microbicide, but one whose commercial use is growing way too rapidly, says Samuel Luoma of the University of California, Davis.

Attacking Plasmodium falciparum by modulating the immune system of its natural mosquito vector is expected to provide an effective alternative means of curbing malaria, according to George Dimopoulos and his team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore, Md.

Touchscreen devices and microblogging are being put to ingenious use for tracking infectious diseases and monitoring compliance with disease-preventing hygiene regimens, according to several participants who outlined their approaches to these tasks during the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, held in Philadelphia, Pa., last October.