MicrobeWorld

There are some nasty fungi that cause diseases in plants, animals and people. One of the most famous is Phytophthora infestans (fie-tof-thor-uh in-fes-tuhns), which caused the Great Potato Famine in Ireland in the mid-1800s that resulted in a million deaths. See the Read More

Last week I was at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to attend a ceremony designating the well-known laboratory on Long Island as a Milestone in Microbiology site. The purpose of this program, which is administered by the American Society for Microbiology, is to recognize institutions that have subs... Read More

Algae also play an important role as the foundation for the aquatic food chain. All higher aquatic life forms depend either directly or indirectly on microscopic gardens of algae.

Most unicellular algae live in water, some dwell in moist soil, and others join ... Read More

Today, 24 October 2012, is World Polio Day:

World Polio Day (October 24) was established by Rotary International over a decade ago to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop a vaccine against poliomyelitis. Use of this inactivated poliovirus vaccine and subseque... Read More

In this audio in spanish language from "El podcast del microbio" I made a resume of the article "Direct Extraction of Photosynthetic Electrons from Single Algal Cells by Nanoprobing System" published in "Nano Letters"

En este episodio de "El podcast del microbio" hacemos un resumen del artíc... Read More

"The emergence of the influenza A(H1N1)2009 virus provided a major challenge to health services around the world. However, vaccination rates for the public and for healthcare workers (HCWs) have remained low. We performed a study to review the reasons put forward by HCWs to refuse immunisation w... Read More

Virginia Campbell,MD, host of the Brain Science Podcast, has published a very interesting interview with Dr. Paul Offit, author of the book Autism’s False Prophets. In the interview, Campbell and Offit explore "the scientific evidence that vaccines DO NOT cause autism, but also examine why the c... Read More

German researchers suspect that a recent increase in human Cowpox infections in Germany may be spread through the handling of food rats (rodents used for feeding pets or zoo animals) and a decrease in small pox vaccinations among the general public in a PLoS One paper entitled "Cowpox Virus Outb... Read More

This episode: Scientists figure out how to utilize the prokaryotic immune system!

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Russ writes:

Hi Vince and the TWiV crew

I love the podcast. It keeps me in touch with lots of basic research in virology which I would otherwise miss.

I do pediatric infectious diseases and you can imagine how much time we spend dealin... Read More

This episode: Bdelloid rotifers borrow genetic material from all over the place!

Download Episode (4.5 MB, 4.8 minutes)

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This is the third annual Week of the Fungi on Small Things Considered, a sporadic undertaking (please excuse the pun).

"Sooner or later, but usually sooner, anyone dealing with fungi will have to deal with the issue of spore dispersal. Many fungi, mushrooms included, are a spore’s way of spre... Read More

One of the very first things you need to do when getting set up for quantitative PCR (qPCR) is to determine the efficiency of the assay because knowing the assay efficiency is critical to accurate data interpretation. And you have to do this every time you design and purchase a new primer pair.
... Read More

Dr. Tony Fiore discusses who should be vaccinated against 2009 H1N1 flu during the 2009-2010 season. He explains the target groups for vaccination, and how these groups differ from those recommended for seasonal flu vaccination. Read More

El podcast del Microbio Nº220 summarize the post on Geobacter bacteria wrote by Suzzane Winter and published in Moselio Sch... Read More

The Welcome Trust has funded an interactive Flash game that can be played on the web that teaches young people how the flu is spread. You start off as a flu virus and the goal is to infect others. Along the way, you get educational information about viruses. Here are some of the instructions: Y... Read More

El podcast del Microbio Nº182 resumes the paper by Chenoll et al. published in Applied and Enviroenmental Microbiology that... Read More

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  Bacillus anthracis causes anthrax, a deadly disease in cattle and a potential bioweapon against humans

  
  


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  .Brucella abortus causes breeding losses in livestock.

  
  


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  Cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green algae) live in water, where they prod... Read More

Robert A. Weisberg was a Scientist Emeritus at NCI until the time of his death on 1 September 2011. Previously he was Chief of Microbial Genetics at NICHHD, a position he retired from in 2008. He was a pioneer in the study of the bacteriophage lambda. His research lead to seminal contributions a... Read More

Ruth writes:

Dear Dick Despommier

My name is Ruth
I am a listener of twip and recently I decided to look into your vertical farming that you mention on the podcast.

While I was watching a video of you explaining vertical farming you mentioned soil-less g... Read More