MicrobeWorld

Whether the microorganisms routinely inhabit the upper troposphere -- perhaps living on carbon compounds also found there -- or whether they were simply lofted there from the Earth's surface isn't yet known. Airborne microbes are of interest to atmospheric scientists, because they could play a r... Read More

Tommy writes:

Hi Vincent and Dickson,

I was listening to the new episode of TWiP (episode 52) and one of your listeners wrote in asking about tree parasites. While plant parasite is not my main field of research, I have written about one such pa... Read More

In 2008 researchers from the University of Southern Denmark showed that the drug thioridazine, which has previously been used to treat schizophrenia, is also a powerful weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococci (Staphylococcus aureus).

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is... Read More

I went to the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, in Denver, Colorado, and I wanted to share some of the fascinating science that I experienced. So here's my summary of the first day!

{joomp3_ext}http://traffic.libsyn.com/bacteriofiles/BFspecialASM2013-May18.mp3{... Read More

Microbiology is poised to make significant inroads towards reducing dependence on crude oil and petroleum-based products.

Join us at ASM headquarters to learn how we can harness the immense metabolic diversity of microbes to generate biofuels and other commodity chemicals from digesti... Read More

Researchers have engineered a strain of electricity-producing bacteria that can grow using hydrogen gas as its sole electron donor and carbon dioxide as its sole source of carbon. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst report their findings at the 113th General Meeting of the A... Read More

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that it would help Saudi Arabia dig deeper into deadly outbreaks of a new SARS-like virus to draw up advice ahead of the annual haj pilgrimage, which attracts millions of Muslims.

The U.N. agency, which is not currently recommending any restr... Read More

Microbial ecology may be a young field but it is well understood already that there is a broad spectrum of interactions between bacterial species, ranging from cooperative to competitive. In a recent paper researchers from John Mekalanos’ lab further characterized a recently discovered mechanism... Read More

One of the things that makes it extremely hard for life to flourish in foreboding places like Mars and the moons of Saturn is the punishing cold. Without the benefit of a blanket-like atmosphere, these celestial bodies have average temperatures well below freezing. Now, researchers from McGill U... Read More

A team of researchers has captured images of green alga consuming bacteria, offering a glimpse at how early organisms dating back more than 1 billion years may have acquired free-living photosynthetic cells. This acquisition is thought to have been a critical first step in the evolution of photo... Read More

Using bacteria to ferry radioisotopes commonly used in cancer therapy directly into pancreatic cancer cells in mice, researchers in the US were able dramatically to reduce the number of secondary tumors that arise when the cancer spreads to other parts of the body (metastases).

Claudia Gravek... Read More

Bacteria can be friends and foes—causing infection and disease, but also helping us slim down and even combating acne. Now, a new study reveals that viruses have a dual nature as well. For the first time, researchers have shown that they can help our bodies fight off invading microbes.

"This ... Read More