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Lola Stamm fell in love with the bacterium that causes syphilis when she was in grad school. Other bacteria are rod-shaped or blobby. Treponema pallidum, the syphilis culprit, is a long, skinny corkscrew — and it slithers. "Under the dark-field microscope they look like little snakes," says Lola Stamm, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "It's really rather creepy, but they're just fascinating organisms." The bacterium is bizarre for another reason – penicillin still obliterates it. (Bichell, 6/10)

For all the pathogens and chemicals monitored by the federal government to protect drinking water, a far broader universe of “emerging contaminants” is going unregulated. The Environmental Protection Agency keeps tabs on scores of substances that have surfaced in water systems around the country, with the aim of restricting those that endanger public health. But partly because the rules that the agency must follow are complicated and contentious, officials have failed to successfully regulate any new contaminant in two decades. Only once since the 1990s has the EPA come close to imposing a new standard — for perchlorate, a chemical found in explosives, road flares, rocket fuel and, it turns out, the drinking water of over 16 million people. (Dennis, 6/10)

Thanks to continued improvement in public health care, Americans today are healthier than ever. The average American is expected to live 79 years, about six years longer than in 1975. The improvement, however, has not been uniform across the United States, and some cities are stuck in the past. In some of the least healthy cities, life expectancy is as low as it was 40 years ago. To determine the least healthy cities in the country, 24/7 Wall St. compiled an index of various health factors and outcomes. Health factors in an area, including eating and exercise habits of residents, the availability of clinical care, social and economic conditions, and the physical environment, tend to be accurate predictors of an area’s health outcomes — its residents’ length and quality of life. (Comen, 6/11)

More than 5 million Americans now have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of elderly dementia, and the prevalence of Alzheimer's among baby boomers is expected to explode by midcentury. The Alzheimer's Association projects that 10 million baby boomers will develop the disease. While studies and media stories that explore the emotional toll the disease extracts from family and friends are all but legion, the financial toll, which can also be devastating, is less understood. (Stephenson, 6/11)