MicrobeWorld

The controversy over research about potentially dangerous H5N1 viruses heated up last night in a New York City debate that featured some of the leading voices exchanging blunt comments on the alleged risks and benefits of publishing or withholding the full details of the studies.

The debate, ... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson review how gut bacter... Read More

Science writer Carl Zimmer has posted his notes from last night's New York Academy of Sciences "Dual Use Research: H5N1 Influenza Virus and Beyond" panel discussion on his blog The Loom. Zimmer's notes and observations reveal a real split in the science community over whether research on the air... Read More

Trudy writes:

Dear Drs. Despommier and Racaniello,

I am almost caught up listening to TWiP! I look forward to your future efforts and eBooks, etc., however, in TWiP # 32, I thought I heard you mention that there would be a link to Dr. Despommier's lectures. ... Read More

A deadly plague bacterium is able to transform the lungs into a breeding ground for other microbes—often escaping detection until it is too late for medical treatment.

Most other microbes that infect the lungs trigger an antimicrobial response within a few hours after infection. This early in... Read More

Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune reporter, has published a Q&A with several leading virologists on the controversy surrounding the potential impact of full publication of two studies on the airborne transmissibility of H5N1.

"Media reports about the controversy have been marked by frightenin... Read More

This paper, expanding the field of toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems, identified the proteins encoded by a mystery plasmid in E coli O157:H7 named pOSAK1, as a TA system. This system consists of as the name specifies, a 'toxic' gene product and another gene encoding the 'antidote'. Usually the anti... Read More

What looks like a Native American dream catcher is really a network of social interactions within a community. The red dots along the inner and outer circles represent people, while the different colored lines represent direct contact between them. All connections originate from four individuals... Read More

This exciting paper addresses a mystery in tumor virology as to how, Bovine Leukemia Virus (BLV), a retrovirus that is frequently recovered in B cell lymphomas, contributes to oncogenesis. microRNAs have rapidly become significant players in cell cycle regulation/tumorigenesis and are also expr... Read More

Circular, smooth, entire, opaque colonies of Proteus vulgaris on a nutrient agar plate. Taken from the Wistreich Collection, appearing exclusively on MicrobeWorld. Read More

El podcast del Microbio Nº253 deals with the sequencing of a Lactobacillus pentosus strain responsible of Spanish‐Style Green Ol... Read More

About research that created a more contagious form of bird flu and the government's reaction. #twiv Read More

Sophie writes:

Dear twiv/twip/twim hosts (not really sure where this mail belongs).

I recently started reading a lot more papers than what I'm used to (school related) and I actually find it quite difficult to use them.

Of course it doesn't help that E... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier,  Read More

Yoshihiro Kawaoka, at the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has authored a paper published in Nature that explains why the results from his research team on the transmissibility of H5N1 between ferrets should be published and openly accessible. Click "Source" to read t... Read More

One of the scientists at the centre of the controversy over the creation a highly dangerous form of bird flu which could cause a devastating human pandemic has denounced attempts by the US Government to censor the research over fears that the findings might be misused by bioterrorists.

Yoshih... Read More

Over 50 percent of bacterial infections in Indian hospitals are resistant to commonly used antibiotics, and surveys show that many widespread bacterial pathogens in India are also resistant to powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics.

In 2010, a team of South Asian and British scientists analyzed... Read More

mBio is publishing a special series of Commentaries this week in response to recent actions of the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which recommended that two scientific journals withhold crucial details of upcoming relating to a novel strain of the bird flu virus, H... Read More

Bacteria can multiply rapidly, potentially doubling every 20 minutes in ideal conditions but this exponential growth phase is preceded by a period known as lag phase, where no increase in cell number is seen. Lag phase was first described in the 19th Century, and was assumed to be needed by bact... Read More

There are 16,000 types of parasitic roundworms causing illnesses in humans and animals. Controlling their effects on health becomes more difficult as the medicines used to treat them become less effective. A University of Georgia nematode expert offers one perspective on new research suggesting ... Read More