MicrobeWorld

Renowned influenza virologist Peter Palese has penned an opinion column for the science journal Nature in which he uses his experience in reconstructing the 1918 pandemic influenza virus strain to question the censoring of H5N1 results by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSAB... Read More

It’s true! Each year it rains viruses, more than a trillion of them per acre over thousands of forested acres in the USA. This is the work of the airborne arm of the USDA Forest Service, part of their efforts to reduce the devastation to hardwood forests caused by the imported gypsy moth, Lymant... Read More

Norton Zinder made two important discoveries in the field of virology. While a Ph.D. student with Joshua Lederberg at the University of Wisconsin-Madison he found that viruses of bacteria (bacteriophages) could move genes from one host to another, a process called transduction. Later in his own ... Read More

Microbe magazine Current Topics and Features Editor Jeff Fox talks with Douglas Theobald of Brandeis University about Theobald's work testing the he notion of a universal common ancestry (UCA) for all species.
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Russ writes:

I think this image from www.3d4medical.com is great!

This is a cool app for the iPad. This would make a great pick of the week

Russ

Julian writes:<... Read More

Jay writes:

Looks like the polio outbreak in the Congo is pretty bad.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jpSHvrTg3sqCZs9hPXwYsuwAjXNA?docId=CNG.29d0fd00722f6f7964062dad40b4f107.ca1

http://www.unicef.org/me... Read More

El podcast del microbio Nº 233 summarize the findings by Handeman et al (Nature, 464: 908-912.) on the transfer of carbohydrate-... Read More

Whether or not the retrovirus XMRV is a human pathogen has been debated since the virus was first described in 2006. The answer is now clear: the results of Blood XMRV Scientific Research Group, along with a partial retraction of the 2009 Science paper describing identification of the retrovirus... Read More

El podcast del microbio Nº 242 tells the history of the use of Rhodotorula yeast as a source of pigments for the egg yolk. El po... Read More

El Podcast del Microbio" Nº 133 resumes the article published in Science about the change of colour in aphids due to a bact... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Grant McFadden, Eurico de Arruda Neto... Read More

James writes:

I'm just writing to clarify my question about the production of the flu vaccine if one of the other seasonal strains was removed as there seemed to be a bit of confusion about the point of it.

As I understand it one of the biggest holdups in seas... Read More

El podcast del Microbio Nº256 and 257 summarize the recent findings about that shows no link between XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Sy... Read More

Greg writes:

Dear TWiV,

The epidemiology episode with Michael Walsh was great. I loved the philosophical detour into counterfactual statements, time travel, and the meaning of causation. TWiV may indeed be viral, but from listening to it I fee... Read More

El podcast del microbio Nº 241 summarize the article published in Science Translational Medicine about the impact of probiotics ... Read More

Justin writes:

Are you, Alan Dove and Prof. Racaniello, saying you think Mikovits and/or others on the Lombardi paper lied about the results or blinding? I think circumspection is a natural human reaction to the allegations of theft that have been made against Dr. Mik... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit... Read More

Kevin writes:

Dear TWIVvers,

I was listening to TWIV episode #50, concerning the recent article from Ila Singh’s group about the prostate cancer – XMRV connection, on the same day the NY Times reported a study from Judy Mikowitz et al., finding an association between ... Read More

Atila writes:

Dear TWiVers,

I have heard recently that some types of herpes virus may protect us from bacterial infections. This made me remember of myxomavirus, viral oncotherapy and how tumor cells have a compromised immune response. Do you think it is possi... Read More