MicrobeWorld

The Society for General Microbiology (UK) publication Microbiology Today has a two page feature by Paul Duprex, Ph.D., Boston University, on Vincent Racaniello, Ph.D., Columbia University, and his popular podcast This Week in Virology. The article discusses Racaniello's use of new media to sprea... Read More

Russian scientists have now poured 60 tonnes of freon and kerosene down the four-kilometre bore hole that plunges through the ice above Lake Vostok in Antarctica. This will stop the hole freezing up during the long Antarctic winter. When summer comes, the Russian team will return to drill the la... Read More

Beer discovered two years ago onboard a shipwreck from the mid-1800s could possibly be recreated using living bacteria discovered in the brew, Finnish researchers announced last Thursday.

According to Terhi Kinnunen of Reuters, Annika Wilhelmson from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland s... Read More

Learn about the bacteria, fungi and other micro-organisms that maintain human health.

The body contains 10 times more bacteria, fungi and other micro-organisms than human cells. Most of these species are harmless—although they can still cause illness if they wind up in the wrong place. In add... Read More

In a very exciting paper, this study showed that in a mouse model of intestinal bacterial infections using Citrobacter rodentium, commensal bacteria were required to clear the infection. The ability of the commensal bacteria to outcompete the invading C. rodentium pathogen was shown to be in pa... Read More

The epithelial cells that line the intestines fire bacteria-fighting “bullets” into the gut, Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered.

The findings, featured on the cover of the April 10 issue of Current Biology, represent a new mechanism for defending the body against gut microbes.
... Read More

The first study using cultivation independent sequencing of the microorganisms in the adolescent male urinary tract has revealed that the composition of microbial communities colonizing the penis in young men depends upon their circumcision status and patterns of sexual activity.

This study, ... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Read More

Joe writes:

How cool is that to be listening to you all reading my emails with Peter Sandman while I am stuck in traffic.

I loved the discussion and want to send a big thank you to Michael for joining in and giving us the missing perspective of what the NSABB ... Read More

Advances in the 1950s and 1960s, including unprecedented cooperation between Soviet and U.S. scientists, allowed polio to be eradicated throughout the Americas by 1994 and all of Europe in 1998. Eliminating the crippling scourge has been more difficult, however, in some parts of Africa and Asia.... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson discuss loaiasis caus... Read More

Squishing a stack of virus sheets generates enough electricity to power a small liquid crystal display. With increased power output, these virus films might one day use the beating of your heart to power a pacemaker, the researchers behind them say.

Piezoelectric materials build up charge whe... Read More

Community in the deep seabed uses so little oxygen that it is no longer clear where the lower bound for life lies.

Most humans would struggle to last for much more than a minute under water without coming up for air, whereas some seals can manage more than an hour — but a microbial community ... Read More

"Take a listen to four very savvy and plain-talking biologists chatting on their business at an inside-the-academy site called This Week in Microbiology, and more specifically at episode TWiM 32. There host and Columbia U. faculty member Vincent Racaniello and two colleagues talk of arsenic and ... Read More

David writes:

Love the TWIPs! I'm a helminth user (25 hookworm for allergies), so your programs are fascinating!

Dr. Racaniello, after listening to TWIP 33 where you were discussing the history of your surname, I thought I'd give your listeners a way to remember you... Read More

When members of a travel soccer team in Oregon fell ill last year, the details of how the disease spread through the team were mysterious. Kimberly Repp, an epidemiologist in Washington County, Oregon, describes the medical detective work that led epidemiologists through the chain of transmissio... Read More

A panel of U.S. experts has recommended federal approval of the first drug shown to prevent HIV — the virus that causes AIDS.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel held two separate votes Thursday on recommending the drug Truvada for healthy people at high risk of AIDS — one fo... Read More

Ron Fouchier (pictured), of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, is the lead author of a controversial paper which lays out how deadly H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, can be made deadlier still. He believes this information should be widely disseminated, so that biologists can work on dru... Read More

This episode: Biofilms help keep seaweed surfaces clear of barnacles!

Down... Read More