MicrobeWorld

by Moselio Schaechter

I don't get tired of symbioses, something I attribute to the Power Law of Symbiosis I just made up: Interacting genomes are more interesting than single ones by the nth power of their numbers, where n is a matter of personal preference. Here I relate two examples that sh... Read More

From the Open University, a neat video highlighting seven amazing things microbes do. Read More

Consider an all-too-common scenario: You're burning up from a high fever after a routine surgical procedure, and an infection specialist is called to help treat your problem. You assume that a short course of antibiotics will quickly turn things around. But the specialist candidly admits: "I'm s... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Matthew Daugherty, Jondavid deJong, Hel... Read More

Synthetic biology is getting a boost. So far, most researchers have designed their synthetic circuits using transcription factors found in bacteria. However, these don’t always translate well to nonbacterial cells and can be a challenge to scale. Now, researchers have come up with a new method t... Read More

The soil is not just a single environment. To human eyes it may look like a brown layer of plant mush that fits into the rocks, but for a living environment it is highly complex. Not only must the bacteria that live within it share their space with small animals, protozoa, and fungi, but they al... Read More

Last year's German E. coli outbreak made headlines around the world in May and June as it sickened nearly 3,800 people and killed 50, distinguishing it as the single deadliest foodborne illness outbreak of all time. The outbreak was a dramatic entrance to the world stage for the microbe at the c... Read More

Only 29 human cases of a new strain of "swine" flu have been identified in two years, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is making sure it's prepared should the H3N2 strain become more widespread.

"This virus is still principally a swine virus, but it doesn't seem to have... Read More

This episode: Scientists engineer mosquito gut bacteria to fight malaria!

... Read More

Like quality-control managers in factories, bacteria possess built-in machinery that track the shape and quality of proteins trying to pass through their cytoplasmic membranes, Cornell biomolecular engineers have shown.

This quality-control mechanism is found in the machinery of the twin-argi... Read More

Soil is the most species-rich microbial ecosystem in the world. From this incredible diversity, plants specifically choose certain species, give them access to the root and so host a unique, carefully selected bacterial community from which they then benefit in a variety of ways. To achieve this... Read More

In episode 63 of MicrobeWorld Video, Dr. Stan Maloy talks with Forest Rohwer Ph.D., Professor of Biology, San Diego State University, about his research on the microbes of the ocean, coral ree... Read More

Writing in Science, Jennifer Carpenter describes a presentation by Nicole King (UC Berkeley) at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting. Choanoflagellates seem to be provoked by bacteria into switching from a single-cell form to a rosette-shaped multicellular form. The work suggests that b... Read More

The composition of microbes in the gut changes dramatically during pregnancy, according to a study published by Cell Press in the August 3rd issue of the journal Cell. Although these changes are associated with metabolic disease under most circumstances, they could be beneficial in pregnant wome... Read More

Results from a study conducted at Georgia State University suggest that a "fight" between bacteria normally living in the intestines and the immune system, kicked off by another type of bacteria, may be linked to two types of chronic disease.

The study suggests that the "fight" continues afte... Read More

Rabies has been thought of as virtually 100-percent fatal unless treated immediately, but new research shows that a small number of isolated Peruvians have natural immunity from the animal-transmitted disease.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in 15 ... Read More

Researchers have taken a new look at an old, but seldom-used technique developed by the petroleum industry to recover oil, and learned more about why it works, how it could be improved, and how it might be able to make a comeback not only in oil recovery but also environmental cleanup.

The te... Read More

Satirical newspaper 'The Onion' has published a spoof of the recent H3N8 news in mBio... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Read More

Jim writes:

As usual I loved TWiM #37. Jo Handlesman adds a lot imho.

I think Michael Schmidt meant "dump data" instead "data dump."  Apologizes to Alan Dove.
<... Read More