MicrobeWorld

El podcast del microbio Nº 373 summarize a recent article published in PLoS ONE on the active extracellular DNA release to the environment by Bacillus subtilis. El podcast del microbio Nº 373... Read More

Of all the things that could be hazardous to your health, would you believe breathing oxygen makes the list?

Our bodies produce toxic chemicals in our cells, called oxidants, which we fight naturally and with foods that contain antioxidants like blueberries and dark chocolate. All forms of li... Read More

Scientist at the Rensselaer Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies and the Rensselaer Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for the Directed Assembly of Nanostructures have created a coating that can selectively kill the bacteria Listeria, a causative agent of food borne illne... Read More

Intestinal dysbiosis may play a role in gastrointestinal (GI) disorders such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in children, and prebiotics and probiotics may be efficacious for treating these conditions, according to Philip M. Sherman, MD, professor of pediatr... Read More

Think about the type of animal that would make an ideal host for a virus. It would gather in large dense groups, making it easier for the virus to jump into fresh hosts. It should have a relatively long lifespan, so any single individual has many chances of becoming infected. It would certainly ... Read More

Warnings about the emergence of another influenza virus may elicit scepticism, but we should not be complacent, cautions Peter Horby.

Once again an animal influenza A virus has crossed the species barrier to cause an appreciable number of human cases. Now, two months after the first known hum... Read More

Amoeba eat bacteria and other human pathogens, engulfing and destroying them – or being destroyed by them, but how these single-cell organisms distinguish and respond successfully to different bacterial classes has been largely unexplained.

In a report in the journal Current Biology, research... Read More

Background on structural analysis of bacterial proteins, from Erec Stebbins, speaker at the 2012 Holiday Lecture "Bacteria's Deadly Design: How Earth's most prevalent life-form uses a microscopic syringe to invade and attack."
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Doctors can now get a peek behind the eardrum to better diagnose and treat chronic ear infections, thanks to a new medical imaging device invented by University of Illinois researchers. The device could usher in a new suite of non-invasive, 3-D diagnostic imaging tools for primary-care physician... Read More

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) is proud to announce the 2012 award laureates. The awards will be presented during the 112th General Meeting of the ASM, June 16-19, 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

Abbott Award in Clinical and Diagnostic Immunology honors a distinguished scientist in th... Read More

A roller derby tournament seems like a brutal research environment: women crash around a rink in short skirts and skates, slamming their shoulders into members of the opposing team so that their own team’s “jammer” can lap them and score. But it’s perfect for researchers investigating how, throu... Read More

Despite the desperate need for new antibiotics to combat increasingly deadly resistant bacteria, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved only one new systemic antibiotic since the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) launched its 10 x ’20 Initiative in 2010 — and that d... Read More

I suppose that most microbiologists and the readers of this blog would split the answer down the middle, the biomass of this planet and the chemical transactions therein being about half microbial, half everything else. However, it’s safe to say that most people, many scientists included, are un... Read More

The phrase "gut bacteria" might sound icky and repulsive, but modern science may have you soon thinking differently about the bugs that live in your intestinal system. Top researchers around the globe are exploring the bacteria that naturally reside in the bowels of both people and animals, and ... Read More

In the summer of 1968, a new strain of influenza appeared in Hong Kong. This strain, known as H3N2, spread around the globe and eventually killed an estimated 1 million people.

A new study from MIT reveals that there are many strains of H3N2 circulating in birds and pigs that are genetically ... Read More

Researchers at UC Davis have shown how the innate immune system distinguishes between dangerous pathogens and friendly microbes. Like burglars entering a house, hostile bacteria give themselves away by breaking into cells. However, sensing proteins instantly detect the invasion, triggering an al... Read More

Governments, funders and regulatory authorities must urgently address the risks posed by gain-of-function research, says Simon Wain-Hobson. Barely two months after a small group of influenza virologists lifted a moratorium on work to make the H5N1 avian flu virus as transmissible between humans... Read More

Researchers from the University of Toronto and SickKids Research Institute announced today that they have successfully mapped the genes in the fungus that causes Dutch Elm Disease. The researchers believe this is the first time the 30 million DNA letters for the fungus Ophiostoma ulmi have be... Read More

The Rockefeller University's Luciano Marraffini is interested in understanding how bacteria evolve by incorporating DNA sequences from other bacteria or from the environment into their genomes. His research focuses on the mechanisms that control the traffic of DNA molecules between bacteria.
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Researchers have found a strain of bacteria that can infect mosquitoes and make them resistant to the malaria parasite. The study, in the journal Science, showed the parasite struggled to survive in infected mosquitoes. Malaria is spread between people by the insects so it is hoped that giving m... Read More