MicrobeWorld

The Scientific American offers up a wonderful slide show of the world's seven deadliest mushrooms. My personal favorite in this collection is the European destroying angel. Click source to view Read More

Since this has sort of been "Joe DeRisi week" here at MicrobeWorld, I thought it would be nice to include this presentation he gave at TED earlier this year. After all he did just receive the Eli Lilly and Company Research Award and Merry Buckley from the Meet the Scientist podcast also publishe... Read More

Swine flu reminded us how important washing our hands can be. Studies show that simple handwashing can decrease communicable gastrointestinal diseases by 50% and communicable respiratory diseases by 20%.

Now, with schools at special risk for swine flu, a Tel Aviv University researcher is brin... Read More

"H1N1 flu is casting a distinctly dappled shadow across the Iowa State Fair Grounds, where 18,000 pork producers (including about 3,000 from 50 foreign countries), 450 exhibitors and 2,500 pigs are spending much of this week."

It seems the H1N1 flu and the spread of misinformation regarding i... Read More

Stonyfield Farms, the makers of the popular yogurt brand by the same name, has come up with a special diet for cows in Vermont that helps to reduce methane emissions up to 18% or so. Climatologist are excited about this idea since many vieew cows and their gas as a big threat to climate change.
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In the latest issue of New Scientist, Sheldon Krimsky, adjunct professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, states that the "blurring of the boundaries between independently refereed publications and advertorials is unacceptable.... Read More

The most recent issue of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science has a great interview with John Barry, historian and author of "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History." The interview discusses his book, it's impact on pandemic pol... Read More

Bacterial parasites known to infect cell nuclei are often assumed to be few and far between. But, recent research from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Symbiosis Group, in Bremen, Germany, describes a novel bacterial parasite named "Candidatus Endonucleobacter bathymodioli" th... Read More

A species of bacteria, isolated from sediments deep under the Pacific Ocean, could provide a powerful clean-up tool for heavy metal pollution. Writing in the current issue of the journal, Microbiology, Professor Gejiao Wang and his colleagues from Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, PR Ch... Read More

Scientists around the world are accelerating their efforts to develop a vaccine against the H1N1 influenza virus (Swine flu) as rapidly as possible, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). The need for such a vaccine received a strong impetus from the World Health Organization, w... Read More

mycoplasma arthritidis. Light micrograph. Crystal violet methylene blue strain. Note colonial morphology and classic 'fired-egg' appearance of isolated colony after approximately 10 days worth of growth on agar Read More

Could mermaids have anything to do with this?

Exposure to estrogen reduces production of immune-related proteins in fish. This suggests that certain compounds, known as endocrine disruptors, may make fish more susceptible to disease.

The research may provide new clues for why intersex fish... Read More

Mycobacterium Xenopi. One Colony of each of three different strains Read More

Nature has just published a news special on microscopes and microscopy. Most of the associated articles are pay-per-view but the slideshow of images is free to check out. Click the source link above. Read More

The sea floor is strewn with raw materials that could be very important in the future: Manganese and iron, but also rarer and more precious elements such as cobalt, copper, zinc and nickel, are present in great quantities in the form of deep-sea nodules and crusts. The depositions of such materi... Read More

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Another video by AJ Cann. This one is of Acanthamoeba polyphaga. Acanthamoeba is a family of amoebae, one of the most common protozoa in soil, and also frequently found in fresh water and other habitats. Interestingly, findings from the University of Bath demonstrate t... Read More

A very interesting blog post over on the Nature Network by editor Henry Gee that's sparking lots of comments and debate.

"The Man is now so worried about the decline in take-up of the MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccine that some clinicians are suggesting they be made compulsory – that no chi... Read More

Research presented by Reid Harris, Department of Biology, James Madison University, at the American Society for Microbiology's General Meeting in Philadelphia provides hope for the world's declining frog population.

"Many amphibian species in relatively pristine habitats are experiencing dram... Read More

This is from NSF's Science Nation videocast program.

The search is on for extremophiles, living things that thrive where life would seem to be impossible -- from the glaciers of the Alaskan arctic, to the ice sheets of Antarctica, that may provide insights about life elsewhere in cosmos. Read More

From Harvard Medical School:

Using the zebrafish as an animal model, researchers have discovered that the body uses hydrogen peroxide to sound the alarm when a tissue has been injured. As a direct result of this hydrogen-peroxide red alert, white blood cells come to the aid of the wounded sit... Read More