Certain bacteria commonly live on the skin of many people without causing harm. However, these bacteria can cause skin infections if they enter the body through cuts, open wounds, or other breaks in the skin. Symptoms may include redness, swelling, pain, or pus.

How serious are bacterial skin infections?

While many bacterial skin infections are mild and easily treatable, some can become very serious and even life threatening. In addition, some bacterial infections can be spread to others. This is why prevention is so important. 

What are the two most common bacteria that cause skin infections?

1. Group A Streptococcus (GAS), often called "strep."
2. Staphylococcus aureus, commonly called "staph."

Impetigo

What is impetigo?

Impetigo is a common bacterial skin infection caused by Group A Streptococcus (GAS) or "strep."

What is Group A Streptococcus (GAS)?

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) or "strep" is a common bacterium (bacterium is the singular form of the plural, bacteria) that is found on the skin or in the throat ("strep throat"). People can carry GAS and have no symptoms of illness or they may develop relatively mild skin infections, including impetigo.

How does impetigo spread?

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) or "strep" can be transmitted through direct person-to-person contact with someone who has the infection. GAS can also be picked up indirectly through contact with an item (such as a wrestling mat, gear, towel, razor, or cell phone) that is contaminated with the bacterium.

What are the symptoms of impetigo?

• Symptoms usually began 1-3 days after infection.
• Sores (lesions) begin as small red spots, usually on the face (especially around the nose and mouth), but can appear anywhere on the body.
• The sores are often itchy, but usually not painful.
• The sores develop into blisters that break open and ooze fluid -- this fluid contains infectious bacteria that can infect others if they have contact with it.
• After a few days, the ruptured blisters form a flat, thick, honey-colored (yellowish-brown) crust that eventually disappears, leaving red marks that heal without scarring.
• There may be swollen glands (enlarged lymph nodes), but usually no fever.

Introduction

Humans have been battling viruses since before our species had even evolved into its modern form. For some viral diseases, vaccines and antiviral drugs have allowed us to keep infections from spreading widely, and have helped sick people recover. For one disease — smallpox — we've been able to eradicate it, ridding the world of new cases.

But as the Ebola outbreaks now devastating  in west Africa demonstrates, we're a long way from winning the fight against viruses.

The strain that is driving the current epidemic, Ebola Zaire, kills up to 90 percent of the people it infects, making it the most lethal member of the Ebola family.  "It couldn't be worse," said Elke Muhlberger, an Ebola virus expert and associate professor of microbiology at Boston University. 

But there are other viruses out there that are equally deadly, and some that are even deadlier. Here are the nine worst killers, based on the likelihood that a person will die if they are infected with one of them, the sheer numbers of people they have killed, and whether they represent a growing threat.

American football stars took a knee in defiance of Donald trump at Wembley Stadium today after he said sportsmen who 'disrespect America' should be 'fired'. 

Players from both Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens dropped to their knees as the national anthem was played prior to the match in London. 

No players were kneeling during the playing of 'God Save The Queen', which followed the Star Spangled Banner. 

They did so after President Trump had stoked tensions by saying NFL players who protested during the national anthem should be sacked by their team. 

At a rally on Friday night the president said: 'Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bi*ch off the field right now... he is fired.' 

He was referring to a controversial string of protests started by player Colin Kaepernick last year when he sat or kneeled during the anthem to highlight the treatment of black Americans. 

Players on both teams and Jaguars owner Shad Khan, who were not kneeling, remained locked arm-in-arm throughout the playing of the national anthem and 'God Save The Queen'. 

Khan, who also owns Championship football club Fulham, has previously donated one million US dollars to Trump's presidential inauguration. Shortly after the contest got under way at Wembley, the Ravens posted a message on Twitter which read: 'We recognise our players' influence. We respect their demonstration and support them 100 per cent. All voices need to be heard. That's democracy in its highest form.'

The Jaguars tweeted a photo of Khan standing, arm in arm with Lewis and Smith, with the caption 'Unity'.  

At a rally in Alabama on Friday night, Trump had delivered a scathing attack on NFL players who opt to kneel in protest when the Star-Spangled Banner is played prior to matches.

He claimed team owners should sack any player involved in such a demonstration and that fans should leave the stadium if they see it.

There was a fiery response from the NFL to Trump's controversial comments. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a statement saying 'divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect'. 

The NFL Players' Association said Trump had crossed a line by effectively telling players to just 'shut up and play'.

Association president Eric Winston said Trump's comments were 'a slap in the face to the civil rights heroes of the past and present'. 

The latest neuroscience research is presenting intriguing evidence that the brains of certain kinds of criminals are different from those of the rest of the population.

While these findings could improve our understanding of criminal behavior, they also raise moral quandaries about whether and how society should use this knowledge to combat crime. In one recent study, scientists examined 21 people with antisocial Personality disorder  – a condition that characterizes many convicted criminals. Those with the disorder "typically have no regard for right and wrong. They may often violate the law and the rights of others," according to the Mayo Clinic.

Brain scans of the antisocial people, compared with a control group of individuals without any mental disorders, showed on average an 18-percent reduction in the volume of the brain's middle frontal gyrus, and a 9 percent reduction in the volume of the orbital frontal gyrus – two sections in the brain's frontal lobe. Another brain study, published in the September 2009 Archives of General Psychiatry, compared 27 psychopath  — people with severe antisocial personality disorder — to 32 non-psychopaths. In the psychopaths, the researchers observed deformations in another part of the brain called the amygdala, with the psychopaths showing a thinning of the outer layer of that region called the cortex and, on average, an 18-percent volume reduction in this part of brain.

"The amygdala is the seat of emotion. Psychopaths lack emotion. They lack empathy, remorse, guilt," said research team member Adrian Raine, chair of the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., last month. In addition to brain differences, people who end up being convicted for crimes often show behavioral differences compared with the rest of the population. One long-term study that Raine participated in followed 1,795 children born in two towns from ages 3 to 23. The study measured many aspects of these individuals' growth and development, and found that 137 became criminal offenders.

One test on the participants at age 3 measured their response to fear – called fear conditioning – by associating a stimulus, such as a tone, with a punishment like an electric shock, and then measuring people's involuntary physical responses through the skin upon hearing the tone.

In this case, the researchers found a distinct lack of fear conditioning in the 3-year-olds who would later become criminals. These findings were published in the January 2010 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Neurological base of crime

Overall, these studies and many more like them paint a picture of significant biological differences between people who commit serious crimes and people who do not. While not all people with antisocial personality disorder — or even all psychopaths — end up breaking the law, and not all criminals meet the criteria for these disorders, there is a marked correlation.

"There is a neuroscience basis in part to the cause of crime," Raine said.

What's more, as the study of 3-year-olds and other research have shown, many of these brain differences can be measured early on in life, long before a person might develop into actual psychopathic tendencies or commit a crime.

Criminologist Nathalie Fontaine of Indiana University studies the tendency toward being callous and unemotional (CU) in children between 7 and 12 years old. Children with these traits have been shown to have a higher risk of becoming psychopaths as adults.

"We're not suggesting that some children are psychopaths, but CU traits can be used to identify a subgroup of children who are at risk," Fontaine said.

Yet her research showed that these traits aren't fixed, and can change in children as they grow. So if psychologists identify children with these risk factors early on, it may not be too late.

"We can still help them," Fontaine said. "We can implement intervention to support and help children and their families, and we should. 

Sex is a natural, healthy and enjoyable part of life. It can be a beautiful, happy and bonding experience. So how can it be an addiction? Aren’t people who say they’re sex addicts just making excuses for their lack of self-restraint and control? Don’t they just enjoy it too much?

We face these questions all the time. They come from a whole world of misunderstanding about what addiction is. Sure, it’s true that not every person who has an affair is an addict. And not everyone who’s watched pornography is an addict. And not everyone who has lots of sex with lots of people is an addict. Some people just have high sex drives, or just happen to like certain things. That’s fine, we’re not trying to label everybody as an addict, or create excuses for irresponsible or unfaithful people. But sex addiction does exist. And it’s different from generally high libido, in two major ways:

1. Once we’ve started, we can’t stop

For alcoholics, there’s no such thing as just one quick drink. For gambling addicts, there’s no such thing as 10 minutes at the casino. For sex addicts, there’s no such thing as “5 minutes of porn” or “just an hour in the strip club” or “just one partner this week”. There’s a whole variety of sexual behaviours that can be addictive – but they all share a common thread: whatever we’re addicted to, we find it impossible to stop once we’ve started. We’ll stay up to the small hours on the internet – we’ll empty bank accounts on prostitutes and lap dancers – we’ll suffer STDs from our involvement in sex work - we’ll have affair after affair – we’ll masturbate until we’re sore – and we’ll get up the next day and do it again. Once we’ve started, we lose control over how much or how long or with whom or when or where.

2. We can’t stay away, no matter what the consequences

The above would all be academic if we could just not start in the first place! If only the alcoholic could remember the disaster of the last time he drank! If only the gambler could recall with sufficient force the horror of the loan shark and the bailiff! If only the sex addict could remember the STD test and its shameful result – the painful discoveries and broken relationships – the jobs lost, the sleep lost – the pay-checks. Many of us have faced such consequences time and again. But they’ve not stopped us going back for more. It seems baffling to others – but all the terrible, humiliating things in the world don’t seem to cure the obsession. In fact, the worse ours lives become, the harder it seems to stop, and stay stopped!

Most people enjoy sex normally. They assume we enjoy it too – just too much. For us, that’s not always the case. Often our addictive behaviours leave us hurt, injured, demoralized, broke, despairing, and even suicidal. Yet no matter how often we experience these negative consequences – no matter how much we hate ourselves and what we’re doing – we always keep going back. Despite repeated and humiliating failures, there’s always one more attempt to control ourselves and enjoy sex as others do, and one more failure. That’s addiction.

Am I a sex addict?

Like an alcoholic unable to stop drinking, sex addicts are unable to stop their self-destructive sexual behavior. Our behaviors vary: compulsive masturbation, pornography, affairs, paying for sex or being paid, voyeurism, exhibitionism, unsafe sex, abusive sex and much more besides. Family breakups, sexual diseases and other health consequences, financial disaster, loss of jobs, and risk to life are often the painful themes of our stories.

We come from all walks of life – we are ministers, doctors, homemakers, factory workers, salespeople, secretaries, clerks, accountants, therapists, dentists, politicians, to name a few. We are men and women – young and old – gay and straight – of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. None of these dividing lines mean anything to us – because they mean nothing to the disease – and we have come to believe that it is a disease

Some of us also struggle with other addictions too like drugs, alcohol, eating disorders and compulsive gambling. Most of us didn’t know what was wrong with us – or that our condition had a name. We often thought we were just dirty, or bad, or unworthy people – we didn’t realise we were suffering from a real and treatable disease.

We made up excuses. We minimized our problem and told ourselves that “everybody is this obsessed with sex.” We denied the harm we were doing. We made solemn vows to ourselves and others. We were often depressed, some of us thought of suicide, some that they were losing their minds. All we knew for sure was that we wanted to stop, but couldn’t

People look at life in the most strange ways, they forget we're they come from based on morels that define the purpose to the route we choose, looking good to impress the naked eye is a respect to your self not to others that analyses you as a person, loyal and love is a impact to the way a person sees there surroundings within there corner, invadeing a person self belief is a curse to your self and a downfall to someone's life, psychologically it's all in the mind on how a person sees them self, if a person is isolated from life it affects them as a whole, as this depends on the strength of that person, if they are weak they will sink, the heart is a soft part of the human organ that gives a person the drive to build there life. Life is short, years go by and your body changes internally, support is a major factor in a persons surroundings as no support would give you less breathing space. Money is a factor of life as it brings stress to people that don't have things they want or has a passion to reach there goal in life which can bring major stress, if that are a target to society that brings them to a wall that holds then in a mind  physical mental state which bring stress to your health and confused heart pain and all the bad measures it carries. We all want the best if we can all see that chance it is a blessing to a person that can see there path or route. People kill for the reason of nothing that has no motto or satisfaction to benefit them self or any one else. I want to open a understanding to a blocked mind as the mind can play tricks that misleads a person to think something that is not true or right or they believe to benefit them self in life, this is evil and cold for the lust of money or something that is selfish. I am born in England but have a different culture from English, as it sees two different cultures that can affect a person with society that is on there own, We all play a role in life and it is best to keep to one path then confuse your self to more combined difference cultures that you don't understand as between one country and another it has a major difference. I hold a open understand for people who are confuse and see another person as a rope to cling too as they can't see there own inspiration to reach there goal in life. Its best you look at your self then other people unless they are your motto to what your creation evolves in life. Ps CS

As a woman who has sex with women (WSW), you may not always identify yourself as a lesbian, or bisexual.

Many WSW had their first sexual experience with a man, have had multiple experiences with men, or still have sex with men. HIV transmission is a risk between women through fingering/fisting, oral sex and sharing sex toys.

The risk is lower than sex involving a man because less bodily fluids are exchanged between women.

Access regular sexual health check ups for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV testing. 

• Sex is safer when none of your partner’s bodily fluids (vaginal secretions, breast milk or blood - including menstruation) enter your body.
• Ensure your partner’s fluids do not enter your vagina, mouth or any cuts. 
• Wash your hands before and after sex.
• Use plenty of lube for fingering or fisting, especially for the anus.
• Use latex gloves, especially if you have a cut or sore on your hands. 
• Avoid oral sex if you or your partner have cuts or sores in or around the mouth, or if the receiving partner is menstruating.
• Use a dental dam, or a condom cut open between the vagina/anus and mouth to prevent STI or HIV transmission. 
• Wash sex toys before and after use and between partners.
• Use a new condom every time sex toys are shared.
• Use sex toys carefully to prevent drawing blood.
• You have the right to:
  
  
  • refuse sex
  • have sex with women
  • practice safer sex.