MicrobeWorld

In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst supervised the evolution of a new strain that dramatically inc... Read More

A recent study published earlier this week from Washington State University suggests Nosema ceranae, a unicellular parasite, and pesticides embedded in old honeycombs are two major contributors to the bee disease known as colony collapse disorder. Now, the first descriptive epizootiological surv... Read More

"An international panel of scientists has agreed to a bar-code standard for plant DNA that will allow the precise identification of most of Earth's 300,000 species of plants, according to a research report due to be published this week.

The agreement is expected to generate a wide range of be... Read More

A recently published paper in Nature Medicine reports that a new strain of HIV has jumped from gorillas to humans. So far, only one person, a 62-year-old French woman from Cameroon, has been found to be infected with the virus, which closely resembles strains of simian immunodeficiency virus (SI... Read More

Officers with the U.S. Marshals Service have seized all skin sanitizers and skin protectants, including ingredients and components, at Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratory's facility in Roy, Utah, the Food and Drug Administration said.

The FDA also warned the public Saturday not to use any... Read More

Scientific American has a great read on how Ophiocordyceps unilateralis takes control of ants as way to create an ideal growing environment for the fungus.

"A tropical fungus has adapted to infect ants and force them to chomp, with surprising specificity, into perfectly located leaves before ... Read More

"A microscopic pathogen and pesticides embedded in old honeycombs are two major contributors to the bee disease known as colony collapse disorder, which has wiped out thousands of beehives throughout the United States and Europe over the past three years, new research at Washington State Univers... Read More

Scientists studying Staphylococcus bacteria, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), have discovered a potent staph toxin responsible for disease severity. They also found the gene for the toxin traveling with a genetic component of Staphylococcus that controls resistance to antibiotic... Read More

Fragments from above compost pile, covered with Aspergillus fumigatus Read More

Numerous pathogens contain an 'internal time bomb', a deadly mechanism that can be used against them. After years of work, VIB researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) were able to determine the structure and operating mechanism of the proteins involved. This clears the road for findi... Read More

As the world prepares for a probable resurgence of H1N1 in the coming months, University of Pittsburgh researchers are controlling the spread of infectious diseases virtually with a $13.4 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to establish a Center of Excellence in Modeling of Infecti... Read More

Bacterias bailarinas
Los microorganismos  pueden nadar en grupo de forma coordinada. Algunos investigadores creen que esto facilita la dispersión y absorción de nutrientes. Esto... Read More

The Scrub Club created by NSF International is designed for children who are 3 to 8 years of age. The web site is a fun, interactive and educational resource that teaches children about the microbes that make them sick and the proper way to wash their hands. The site is a hodgepodge of fun flash... Read More

Gary Vay-ner-chuck host of the popular web series WineLibrary.tv has a new collaborative project with Samantha Ettus. Their show, Obsessed TV goes one on one with some of today's more notorious people. On this episode Sam talks with Dr. Philip Tierno a.k.a. Dr. Germ and author of The Secret L... Read More

A U.S. plan to rely on swine flu vaccines without ingredients to stretch the supply would reduce the number of available shots just when other countries need them most, the British journal Lancet said in an editorial.

The ingredients, called adjuvants, have never been approved for flu vaccine... Read More

The fruit industry has been told to capitalise on the potential use of biopesticides ahead of the forecasted implementation of new EU regulations in spring 2010.

Roma Gwynn of Rationale Biopesticide Consultants told delegates at Fruit Focus that she expected sales of biopesticides, which curr... Read More

Interview with Dr. Adam Driks, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Loyola University Medical Center, on the ability of anthrax to form spores. Read More

Interfering with communication among bacteria can prevent them from mounting a unified and perhaps deadly assault on their host organism, research by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators shows. The finding suggests a different kind of medicine that could be less likely than tradi... Read More

Scientists from Florida have found that zinc not only supports healthy immune function, but increases activation of the T cells responsible for destroying viruses and bacteria.

Scientists administered either a zinc supplement or a placebo to healthy volunteers to assess the effects of zinc on... Read More

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, scientists in Singapore, The Netherlands and France report that they have developed a novel immunization method that will induce fast and effective protection in humans against the life-threatening malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, which inf... Read More