"Scrapie" is the old Scottish shepherds' name for a disease of their sheep which has been known for several centuries. It is the original example of a group of diseases, known as the "transmissible ...

When sprayed into the air, prions that cause mad cow and other neurodegenerative diseases may be in one of their most lethal forms. A new study has revealed one short exposure to sprayed prions can be ...

People with the rare and fatal brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) show signs of the disease in their eyes, according to a new study. The study found evidence of prions — the infectious ...

Special proteins known as prions, which are perhaps best known as the agents of mad cow and other neurodegenerative diseases, can also serve as an important source of beneficial variation in nature.

One of the strangest things that can sicken us—a rogue misfolded protein that destroys the brain, known as a prion—is even scarier than we knew. Researchers were able to find the prions responsible ...

Prions are not rare, usually are not harmful and may even help organisms adapt, a new study in yeast suggests. Prions are shape-shifting proteins that change function along with their shapes, and can ...

The spread of prions to the brain does not occur by direct transmission across the blood-brain barrier, according to a new study. As noted by the authors, insights into how prions enter the brain ...

After an epic series of experiments, a group of researchers has observed and reproduced what could be the spontaneous generation of prions--rogue misfolded proteins that have been implicated in the ...

There’s something unfeasibly sinister about prions. These infectious entities are incredibly simple, but they can cause fatal and untreatable diseases like mad cow disease, CJD, and others. Prions are ...

Evidence mounts that chain reactions involving toxic proteins link Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and more In the human form of mad cow disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a person ...