MicrobeWorld

A new urine test developed with funding from the Wellcome Trust will allow doctors to diagnose chlamydia infection in men within the hour, improving the ability to successfully treat the infection on the spot and prevent re-transmission.

{flvremote}http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/c... Read More

Swine flu vaccine makers may rely on a U.S. emergency declaration to use experimental additives made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Novartis AG to boost a limited supply of shots that will be available to fight the pandemic.

The ingredients, known as adjuvants, may be added for the first time to... Read More

In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst supervised the evolution of a new strain that dramatically inc... Read More

The masterpieces that spring from the talents of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and other artists often begin with the creation of a gradient of colors on a palette. In a similar manner, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have created an innovative device called the “microflu... Read More

Many of the new techniques based on nanotechnology that have been developed for faster and more sensitive detection of pathogens fail in day-to-day clinical use because they require complex sample preparation or measurement equipment, or simply cannot keep up with the large sample throughput in ... Read More

Bacteria found in sweet gum wood may improve the preprocessing steps for cost-effective production of cellulosic ethanol.

JDR-2, a strain of the wood-decaying bacteria Paenibacillus, can break down and digest hemicelluloses, which in traditional cellulosic ethanol production is broken down by... Read More

Hundreds of Americans suspected of carrying H1N1 have been quarantined in China this summer. Here is a transcript from one American family between the mother and her daughter who was caught up in China's swine flu dragnet this summer. The authors are Sheryl Gay Stolberg, White House corresponden... Read More

A new test developed by Edmonton-based Innovotech™ Inc. will now allow doctors to more accurately identify the right antibiotics required to treat serious, chronic infections such as Cystic Fibrosis that are biofilm based. With more than 80 per cent of infections in the developed world caused by... Read More

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute scientists have created a weakened strain of the malaria parasite that will be used as a live vaccine against the disease. The vaccine, developed in collaboration with researchers from the US, Japan and Canada, will be trialled in humans from early next year.

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Insulin helps to speed the recovery of "severe burns and other kinds of serious wounds such as traumatic bone fractures."

One of the challenges in biomedicine however is the delivery of a localized release of therapeutic medicine. Now "researchers at Northwestern University have demonstrated ... Read More

Scientific American is on twitter (@sciam) and wrote up a quick list of science people they follow on twitter including Carl Zimmer aka @carlzimmer, evolutionary biologist Jonathan Eisen aka Read More

Improved DNA sequencing technology is making reading genomes faster and cheaper every day. But modifying genes in microbes and other organisms still requires slow and painstaking effort. Now, researchers report that they've come up with a new way to modify the genomes of billions of microbes sim... Read More

Cold and flu sufferers, there may be a way to head off those irritating symptoms before they cause you to miss work or school.

New evidence suggests that probiotics -- good bacteria that can aid immune function -- can have a preventive effect for cold and flu viruses.

In a study sponsored... Read More

The mechanism used by 'Natural Killer' immune cells in the human body to distinguish between diseased cells, which they are meant to destroy, and normal cells, which they are meant to leave alone, is revealed in new detail in research published July 28 in PLoS Biology.

Understanding how this ... Read More

Swine flu is now a greater threat to Britain than terrorism, according to Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary. The government is now advising pregnant women to avoid unnecessary travel.

To date, more than 650 people have been taken to hospital with the virus in England, including more than 200... Read More

Carl Zimmer of the NY Times has written an interesting article on researchers who have confirmed that there is a very thin film of microbes covering the ocean surface. They claim that the top hundredth-inch of the ocean is an ecosystem all unto its own.

Michael Cunliffe, a marine biologist a... Read More

According to a study in a special issue of Medical Decision Making, a large-scale, covert anthrax attack on a large city would overwhelm hospital resources even with an extremely effective public health response, primarily because of expected delays in detecting the attack and initiating a respo... Read More

"A group of researchers at Tulane University is working to develop biological methods for producing butanol that might ultimately lead to widespread use of the chemical as a fuel generated from waste materials rather than nonrenewable fossil fuels.

Once the researchers determine the best bact... Read More

According to Nutra-ingredients.com, the International Probiotics Association (IPA) is relocating its headquarters to to Zurich, Switzerland, a move that is designed to bring the organization closer to regulatory action related to the healthy bacteria. This relocation comes just a few months ... Read More

According to AFP, countries are scrambling to buy up hundreds of millions of doses of the H1N1 vaccine. However, health experts from WHO are warning that developing nations may not get adequate supplies if wealthy nations grab up the all the vaccine it can. Click "source" for the full story. Read More