You might not actually need to finish your antibiotics

Getty Images/Joe Raedle A recent article in the British Medical Journal set off a bit of a firestorm with its claim that “the antibiotic course has had its day.” The authors challenged the very widespread belief that you should keep taking every last dose of antibiotic prescribed by your physician even after you feel better. […]

Learning the rules of antibiotics to make old drugs work on new bugs

Enlarge (credit: Getty | BSIP) Bacteria come in two flavors: Gram-positive and Gram-negative. Gram is a violet dye, named for its discoverer, that is more readily taken up by some microbes (the Gram-positive ones) than by others (you guessed it, the Gram-negative ones). Gram-negative bacteria are surrounded by two cell membranes, and the outer one is really […]