One of the most common operations performed in Britain – on which generations of trainee surgeons have honed their skills – is outmoded, research suggests. Surgery for appendicitis should be abandoned and replaced with a course of antibiotics, experts say.

A citrus disease that has killed millions of trees and cost growers billions of dollars across Florida and Brazil has been detected in California, despite the industry's best efforts to keep it at bay.

The number of balloons littering the UK's beaches rose last year, with campaigners warning jubilee and Olympic celebrations could make the problem worse.

Banknotes can carry more germs than the average toilet seat, with some harbouring E.coli, an expert said today.

Florence Nightingale may have had a point when she insisted 150 years ago that open windows were the hallmark of a healthy hospital ward, according to a microbiologist who believes air conditioning and an ultra-sterile environment may actually contribute to infections.

An infection that killed three babies at a hospital has been traced to taps in its neo-natal unit.

Expectant mothers transferred after deaths are linked to bacterium in Belfast hospital

A neonatal room at a hospital in Northern Ireland is being emptied after three babies died from an infection, medical staff said.

Bacteria which cause Legionnaire's disease have been found throughout Hong Kong's brand new, £432 million government headquarters.

Bulletproof skin, super-fine netting strong enough to bring down a fighter jet, artificial tendons that are even tougher and more flexible than the real thing. The potential uses of spider silk might be nothing out of the ordinary to Peter Parker, but scientists in the real world have struggled in vain for decades trying to work out ways to produce enough of the stuff to be useful. Not for much longer, perhaps.

A naturally occurring molecule in bacteria can block the development of breast cancer, scientists have discovered, paving the way for the design of more potent and selective drugs.

The fossilised remains of the oldest known lifeforms on Earth have been discovered in samples of rock collected near a remote watering hole in the middle of the Australian Outback.

Scientists have found 1,400 strains of bacteria lurking in human belly buttons. The discovery was made during a study in which 95 volunteers allowed a team of microbiologists to gaze at their navels and take swabs from inside their belly buttons.

German vegetable sprouts caused the E. coli outbreak that has killed 31 people and sickened more than 3,000, investigators announced Friday after tracking the bacteria from patients in hospital beds to restaurants and then farm fields.