MicrobeWorld

In episode 35 of This Week in Virology, hosts Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Dick Despommier and guest Read More

A promising antimicrobial agent already known to kill bacteria can also kill viruses and stimulate the innate immune system, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. In a paper appearing online June 4 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Michael Howell, PhD, Assistant Professo... Read More

Dogfish Head Brewery from Delaware has announced they will be recreating the original recipe of a 9,000 year old brew whose ingredients were deduced from pottery shards found in Northern China.

"University of Pennsylvania molecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern first described the beverage i... Read More

Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) are the most important vector-borne viral diseases in the World. Around 50-100 million cases appear each year putting 2.5 billion people at risk of suffering this debilitating and sometimes fatal disease. Dengue Fever is prevalent in the Tropi... Read More

The Minnesota Zoo has published an educational site for children where you match the feces to the animal. Personally, I find this cuts close to the edge of common decency but I did learn that the ostrich is the only bird that can poop and pee separately. I have a feeling young kids will love thi... Read More

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