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How can chickens warn scientists about mosquito-borne disease?

Chickens kept for surveillance can reveal local exposure to West Nile virus through newly detected antibodies. Scientists are using the birds' immune responses as clues, rather than asking them to catch mosquitoes. Explore how this method fits alongside testing mosquitoes and tracking human illness.

3–5 min

Questions you could explore

  • Why might an antibody signal arrive too late to be the first warning?
  • How does testing a chicken's antibodies differ from measuring infection in mosquito samples?

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Daylight and the body's clock

Health and the body3–5 minEven in a room with no clocks, your body follows an internal roughly 24-hour schedule of sleepiness, hunger, and alertness. Those internal daily rhythms respond to outside cues, with morning and evening light helping reset and coordinate the body's master clock.

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4–5 min

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Antibiotics and the viruses they cannot treat

Health and the body2–3 minAntibiotics can treat certain bacterial infections, but they do not treat the viruses that cause a common cold. Because bacteria are living cells with their own metabolic machinery and viruses are tiny genetic packages that hijack your cells, an antibiotic that disables bacteria has no matching target in the viruses that cause a cold.

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