Zika research: Science in a hurry
Recently headlines have declared that Zika has been confirmed to cause microcephaly. If you haven't been following, Zika is a viral infection similar to Yellow Fever or Denguy Fever that has broken out in Brazil over the last year. At the same time, Brazil has witnessed an epidemic of a severe birth defect called microcephaly. It's alarming both for it's consequence and it's mystery. Microcephaly is a terrible birth defect in which babies are born with small, malformed brains. But although it seems likely that the microcephaly epidemic is the result of an outbreak of another virus occurring at the same time, we don't actually know how Zika causes microcephaly or how often microcephaly occurs in women with Zika. This is a huge question. In order to firmly establish that Zika is actually CAUSING birth defects that are occurring, researchers in Brazil grew neruons in a dish and then infected them with Zika. When they did, the neurons died. What...