zoonotic disease
tsmith | June 3, 2011...when it contains a weird gene conferring methicillin resistance that many tests miss.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become a big issue in the past 15 years or so, as it turned up outside of its old haunts (typically hospitals and other medical facilities) and started causing infections--sometimes very serious--in people who haven't been in a hospital before. Typically MRSA is diagnosed using basic old-school microbiology techniques: growing the bacteria on an agar plate, and then testing to see what antibiotics it's resistant to. This can be done in a number of…