MicrobeWorld

With all the excitement about the microbes found in Greenland that have been buried below two miles of ice for at least 120,000 years and have been revived in the laboratory, there is another living microbe that's supposedly 250 million years old.

Found in a Kansas salt mine and reviv... Read More

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that three scientists who presented at the 109th general meeting of the American Society for Microbiology speak out on the possibility of plastics made (or broken down) by naturally occurring microbes.

The article highlights the work of Mark van Loos... Read More

After 120,000 years of slumbering in a Greenland glacier beneath almost two miles of ice, an ultra-small bacteria has been resurrected by the patient efforts of scientists. After incubating the bacteria for almost a year in water that was just above freezing temperature, colonies of the tiny pur... Read More

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Manejando enfermedades en insectos beneficiosos

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Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it, according to new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In a paper that appeared today in Nature, Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel, doctoral student Amir Mitchell and research associate Dr. Orna Dahan of the Institute's Molecular Genetics De... Read More

Targeting children may be an effective use of limited supplies of flu vaccine, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust and the EU. The study suggests that, used to support other control measures, this could help control the spread of pandemics such as the current swine flu.

As the ... Read More

When we think of networks, we think of humans and the cables we’ve run around the world to connect our species. Figuring out how to move electrons has transformed human society, but we are not the only species on earth that lives in a wired world.

A few years ago, microbiologist Gemma Reguera... Read More

Researchers at The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee published the first initial paper describing the Milwaukee prevalence of the largest outbreak of novel swine origin influenza virus (S-OIV) in America in the June 11, 2009, online issue of Viruses. This corresponded to the announcement... Read More

This comes from the UK's Food Standards Agency:

People over the age of 60 are more likely to take risks with 'use by' dates than younger people, according to new research published today by the Food Standards Agency. The research coincides with the launch of an Agency campaign to focus on thi... Read More

It's two inches long, grows on wood, and is shaped like a phallus. A new species of stinkhorn mushroom, Phallus drewesii, has been discovered on the African island of Sao Tome and graces the upcoming cover of the journal Mycologia. The mushroom is named after Robert Drewes, Curator of Herpetolog... Read More

The number of Nebraska cattle herds quarantined because of bovine tuberculosis concerns has jumped to 42 and two other states were warned the disease may have already spread there.

The quarantine, which includes roughly 15,000 Nebraska cattle, is likely to continue growing in the weeks ahead,... Read More

An international team of scientists has discovered extensive similarities between a strain of bacteria commonly associated with plants and one increasingly linked to opportunistic infections in hospital patients. The findings suggest caution in the use of the plant-associated strain for a range ... Read More

This comes from the Bitesize Bio site for molecular biologists. It may serve as a handy resource.

Keeping safe in the lab really only requires one thing: common sense. But if you look at what people are doing in the lab, you might think that that common sense isn’t so common after all.

Her... Read More

Bioremediation of industrial sites and petrochemical spillages often involves finding microbes that can gorge themselves on the toxic chemicals. This leaves behind a non-toxic residue or mineralized material. Writing in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution, researchers in China... Read More

"Picture the lobby atrium of a new, green building, one filled with leafy plants and trees. Now imagine that those trees are growing in waste collected from the building's toilets."

Do you still want to work there?

This is an interesting article in Wired on a living sewage system that filt... Read More

Edward Schecter remembers overhearing the doctors saying he was going to die.

His fever had spiked to 106 degrees. Doctors put him in a bathtub full of ice, then gave him a last-ditch antibiotic whose side effects could have killed him. Before his ordeal was over, he would lose more than 20 ... Read More

A swimming pool can offer relief from summer heat, but swimmers should know what they are jumping into. It could be a soup of nasty parasites.

Reports of gastrointestinal illness from use of public pools and water parks have risen sharply in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease ... Read More

"University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation's food supply.

Friedland and his co-authors suggest farmed fish could transmit ... Read More

"Rock snot," a.k.a. Didymosphenia geminata is a fast-spreading single-cell algae that is invading the once pristine streams popular with fly fisherman.

Didymo has a natural tendency to grow upstream in fast-moving rivers and creeks, but it can spread by clinging to fishing equipment, especia... Read More