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Heads of state from around the globe will gather this week to try to address a long-neglected issue that poses perhaps the biggest health threat the world faces: the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is not traditionally the domain of world leaders, and health-related issues — outside of crises such as the Ebola outbreak — are rarely discussed at venues like the United Nations General Assembly. (Branswell, 9/19)

Hospitals are stocked with lots of vital drugs. But there’s one that is time-sensitive, life-saving, and an utter necessity in treating a rare kind of infection — but you’ll find it almost nowhere in the US. The drug is called miltefosine. It is a microbe-killing drug that can sometimes save the lives of people infected with a brain-eating amoeba, if given immediately upon diagnosis. The problem is that, until recently, the only place the drug came from was CDC headquarters; when an infection was reported, the drug would have to be flown or driven from Atlanta, adding hours of delay. (Wessel, 9/16)

My trillions of gut microbes, it seems, are in constant communication with my brain, and there’s mounting evidence that they may affect how I feel — not just physically but emotionally. Does this mean — gulp — that maybe our bugs are driving the bus? I spoke with the book’s author, Dr. Emeran Mayer, professor of medicine and psychiatry at UCLA, executive director of the Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience and expert in brain-gut microbiome interactions. (Goldberg, 9/16)