MicrobeWorld

Viruses are biological pirates, invading cells and hijacking their machinery to reproduce and infect again. Research at Harvard Medical School is shedding new light on the battle line where viral and cell membranes meet, and the key role of a protein grappling hook with which the influenza virus... Read More

A paper recently published in the Journal of Animal Science helps researchers further understand how microbials and probiotics affect poultry health.

Researchers at the North Carolina State University and Chung Jen College of Nursing, Health Sciences and Management (Taiwan) conducted a study ... Read More

Does beer have anti-virus powers? According to a new study funded by Japanese beer company Sapporo Breweries, a "key ingredient" found in the world's most popular alcoholic beverage may very well help stave off winter sniffles.

Researchers at Sapporo Medical University found that humulone, a ... Read More

Children from wealthy families may more likely to have peanut allergies than those less well-off, a new study finds.

In the study, children ages 1 to 9 from high-income families had higher rates of peanut allergies compared with children these ages from lower income families.

The researche... Read More

Seven decades after penicillin revolutionized the treatment of infections by killing bacteria, medicine is poised for another revolution.

The central idea: Many bacteria, rather than creating disease, actually protect against it. So, rather than indiscriminately killing all bacteria, a growin... Read More

A fascinating, if disconcerting, fact: More than 100 trillion so-called good bacteria thrive in or on the human body. A sizable chunk of them maintain residence in the human digestive tract. Probiotics, live microorganisms that benefit their human host, are among these beneficial bacteria.

Pr... Read More

Researchers find a viral symbiont of a protozoan parasite increases virulence to the human host.

When humans have parasites, the organisms live in our bodies, co-opt our resources, and cause disease. However, it turns out that parasites themselves can have their own co-habitants.

Researc... Read More

Children with eczema have a more diverse set of bacteria in their guts than non affected children, finds a new study in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Microbiology. The types of bacteria present were also more typical of adult gut microbes than for toddlers without eczema.

Eczema is... Read More

The agent of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) has been shown to have the ability to hide and demonstrate resistance from harsh environmental conditions to antibiotics used to treat the infection, thanks to the formation of a biofilm, according to a University of New Haven news release Oct... Read More

I've never met anyone who buys organic food to get more vitamins and minerals, so it's unclear why the public has been treated to a series of studies -- most recently a meta-review out of Stanford University -- telling us that for the most part organics don't have more vitamins and minerals.

... Read More

A novel virus has been identified as the possible cause of a common but mysterious disease that kills a significant number of pet snakes all over the world, thanks to research led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)—and three snakes named Juliet, Balthazar and Lar... Read More

Northwestern University scientists have discovered one of the ways the influenza virus disarms our natural defense system.

The virus decreases the production of key immune system-regulating proteins in human cells that help fight the invader. The virus does this by turning on the microRNAs --... Read More

Nels writes:

Dear Vincent,

A note of gratitude to you and your crew for generously “interrogating” my recent paper on the experimental evolution of vaccinia virus.

BTW, it was evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen (not Richard Dawkins) who proposed an... Read More

Nearly one third of forestry workers in parts of eastern France are infected with Hepatitis E virus (HEV), according to a paper in the September Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Wild boars in the same region are also heavily infected. HEV is endemic in developing nations, but heretofore, HEV in... Read More

Waves at the beach are relaxing. Waves at a baseball game are fun. Waves in the bacterial world are deadly. This is according to a study offered by scientists from Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School.

The study’s findings show one of the... Read More

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been named a Milestones in Microbiology site by the American Society for Microbiology. This ASM program recognizes institutions and the scientists who worked there that have made significant contributions toward advancing the science of ... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Read More

The 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza virus appears to have required certain mutations in order to be transmitted to humans, according to a paper in the September Journal of Virology. The research could prove extremely valuable for efforts to predict human outbreaks.

The 2009 influenza pandemic wa... Read More

Many people would be surprised to learn that bacterial cells in the digestive tract outnumber their own cells 10 to one.

Most don’t know that each person has a unique mix of gut bacteria, like a fingerprint.

And they certainly don’t know that giving this bacteria the royal treatment by eat... Read More

This episode: Using a bacterial trick to protect pathogen proteins from radiation could help produce useful vaccines!

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