MicrobeWorld

A mysterious and scattered outbreak of the E. coli bacteria is linked to 14 illnesses, including a child's death, health officials say.

No form of contaminated food or other cause has been identified in the illnesses, which occurred in April and May, according to the Centers for Disease Cont... Read More

Here’s my weekly column, which will also run in Monday’s Health and Science section of the Philadelphia Inquirer

Image is from Penn and reportedly shows a color enhanced tissue section from a healthy mouse. The mouse cells are green and bacterial cells are purple.

Next time your digestiv... Read More

Soil samples obtained from South American volcanoes have revealed a smattering of different microbe types that have somehow managed to survive in extreme conditions, the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder) announced in a June 8 press release.

According to the university, the scientist... Read More

New research published June 8 in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genomics reveals that the Malaysian parasitic plant Rafflesia cantleyi, with its 50cm diameter flowers, has 'stolen' genes from its host Tetrastigma rafflesiae. Analysis of these genes shows that their functions range from... Read More

Bacteria can use minerals in soil as electrical grids, which helps the microbes generate chemicals they need to survive, a new study says.

The process involves different bacterial species trading electrons—negatively charged subatomic particles.

Electrons are key to all life-forms, from mi... Read More

Bacteria in the gut play a crucial role in human health, and imbalances in bacterial populations can contribute to many disorders. New research suggests that fungi, though not as common in the intestines as bacteria, may also play a role in causing and modulating disease.

The results could le... Read More

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have discovered a parasitic mite has caused the deformed wing virus to proliferate in honey bee colonies.

This association is now thought to contribute to the world-wide spread and probable death of millions of honey bee colonies. The current monetar... Read More

Biorecognition at the molecular level is a rapidly advancing technology that has enlisted the help of synthetic polypeptides to come up with the ultimate antibody.

The EU 'Synthetic superantibodies - Bioinspired engineering of artificial receptor structures' (Superantibodies) project merged t... Read More

Family members of children with a staph infection often harbor a drug-resistant form of the germ, even though they don’t show symptoms, say researchers.

The results are published in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Investigators focused on family members of n... Read More

India has been free of polio for over one year. This is a remarkable accomplishment, considering that just 30 years ago the country recorded 200,000 cases of the disease annually, or one every three minutes. With polio endemic in two neighboring countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in the mo... Read More

Very few microbiome characterizations have focused on our commensal fungi. The researchers in this paper addressed this question by sequencing fungal ribosomal DNA as well as directly visualizing fungi via colonic tissue staining. They recovered fungi from the feces of rats, guinea pigs, dogs,... Read More

Stanford researchers have helped open a new door of possibility in the high-stakes effort to save the world's coral reefs.

Working with an international team, the scientists -- including Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment Senior Fellows Jeff Koseff, Rob Dunbar and Steve Monismith --... Read More

In 2009, the H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic struck, infecting millions and killing more than 18,000 worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Though less severe than initially feared, the pandemic highlighted the potential threat of deadly viruses emerging from animals into humans, and t... Read More

The formation of the mineral dolomite is still puzzling scientists. Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean" and GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel together with colleagues from Switzerland and Spain have now shown that bacteria can facilitate the formation of... Read More

At first glance it appears to be a minuscule marble spinning around its vertical axis. Look closer, however, and you see a stationary spherical membrane of fluid, just 3 microns across. It is the stuff inside the droplet that is rotating. This self-contained centrifuge has been created by blasti... Read More

Health experts are calling for faster testing of the 9 million people worldwide estimated to be infected with tuberculosis each year after a study in China found drug-resistant strains were rife.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, gives the first nationw... Read More

The healthy human intestine is colonized with over 100 trillion beneficial, or commensal, bacteria of many different species. In healthy people, these bacteria are limited to the intestinal tissues and have a number of helpful properties, including aiding in the digestion of food and promoting a... Read More

Mutations in a gene linked to restless legs syndrome (RLS) in humans appear to disturb sleep in fruit flies.

The mutant flies wake up more often during sleep periods, which resembles a key feature of human RLS, acccording to a study by researchers at Emory University. The results are publishe... Read More

Protein knots, a structure whose formation remains a mystery, may have specific functional advantages that depend on the nature of the protein’s architecture.

“The presence of a knotted or slipknotted structure in a protein is relatively rare but really is very interesting,” says Kenneth Mill... Read More

People in the homes of children with skin and soft-tissue infections caused by the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus have a higher rate of methicillin-resistant S. aureus colonization than the general population, a new study finds.

S. aureus infection often is referred to as Staph infection. Met... Read More