MicrobeWorld

TWiM #49 transcript

Here is a transcript of TWiM episode #49, "Grape-like clusters". Thanks to Frank Shinneman for transcription.

The transcript is also available as a pdf file - click here to download.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, and Michael Schmidt

Aired 16 January 2013

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Vincent Racaniello: This week in Microbiology is brought to you by the American Society for Microbiology, at microbeworld.org/twim. This Week in Microbiology, episode 49, recorded January 10^th, 2013.  Hello, everyone. I’m Vincent Racaniello and you’re listening to TWIM, the podcast that explores unseen life on earth.  This is our first episode of 2013.  Happy New Year, everybody.

Joining me today from Small Things Considered, Elio Schaechter.

Elio Schaechter: Howdy.

Vincent: Happy New Year.

Elio: Happy New Year to you and everybody who’s listening.

Vincent: That’s right. Another one.  We started another year of TWIM among other things, of course. Also joining us today from the Medical University of South Carolina, Michael Schmidt.

Michael Schmidt: Happy New Year to everyone.

Vincent: Everyone have a good Holiday?  Elio, you were in the desert right?

Elio: Absolutely.

Vincent: I have this vision of you standing in the desert with nothing around.  But there must be houses or something there, right?

Elio: There’s a town called Borrego Springs.  But if you go a ways, you’re right.  Actually it’s not like the Sahara, big dunes desert.  There are some dunes around there but really there’s quite a bit of vegetation in between.  So if you look from an airplane you would probably see half-sand and half-vegetation.  There’s really little bushes.  The creosote bush is the main one in the western desert.  It’s abundant, as well, but there’s really, it is a desert by any definition.

Read more: TWiM #49 transcript

TWiM #47 transcript

Here is a transcript of TWiM episode #47, "Resistance on the surface". Thanks to Raphael Fernandez and Steve Stokowski for transcription.

The transcript is also available as a pdf file - click here to download.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, and Michael Schmidt

Aired 19 December 2012

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Vincent: This week in Microbiology is sponsored by ASM, the American Society for Microbiology, the world’s largest membership society for microbiologists. To find out how ASM membership can help advance your science, your career, and your network go to ASM.org/Advance.

Joining me today from Small Things Considered is Elio Schaechter.

Elio: How are you doing?

Vincent: I am well.

Elio: Nice to be on again.

Vincent: Welcome back, hope everything is well with you.

Elio: Yeah, we are having some rain in San Diego which is unusual but most welcome. Maybe I’ll get to see some mushrooms popping up.

Vincent: I was just going to ask you, will the mushrooms come out now?

Read more: TWiM #47 transcript

TWiM #46 transcript

Here is a transcript of TWiM episode #46, "Spore!". Thanks to Frank Shinneman for transcription.

The transcript is also available as a pdf file - click here to download.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, Michael Schmidt, and Jonathan Dworkin.

Aired 5 December 2012

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[0:06:38]

Vincent Racaniello: I know that you work on aspects of sporulation.  I thought we’d talk about that today.  But you didn’t do sporulation in Peter Model’s?  You did phage.

Jonathan Dworkin:  Right.  I specifically did look at how phage infection turned on this sort of particular sets of gene expression in E. coli.

Vincent:  And in the Losick lab did you work on sporulation?

Jonathan:  I worked on sporulation.  That’s where I fell in love with, sporulation as a discipline. Yeah, it’s great.

Vincent:  And that was in Bacillus subtilis which is a model organism used in many laboratories.  Right?  My wife did her thesis on B. subtilis.  She did a phage phi 105.  Yes, I could not marry anyone but a virologist.  I remember in college a friend of mine said, “We have to find a good phage for Vinny”.  I was just thinking of that.  And we did.  We found a good phage.  But then she went on to parasites.

Jonathan:  That’s right. Bacillus subtilis has been a model system in microbiology since the very beginning when Robert Koch first reported it. It was in 1877. He talked in back-to-back papers in the Zeitschrift für Pflanzen Biologie because there were no microbiology journals in 1877.  He described Bacillus anthracis and Ferdinand Cohn in the accompanying paper described Bacillus subtilis.  So it’s been a subject of study for a very long time.  The reason that Koch was really interested in spores and why they were interested in Bacillus was that in the middle of the 19^th century, biologists were very interested in what is life.  What makes living things different than nonliving things?  Spores were very strange and troubling.  Here you had these things that seemed very dormant, that could live outside without any nutrients or anything like that.  They seemed like they were not living matter.  Then you drop spores into broth and within 30 minutes you were seeing replicating bacteria.  So it was a little philosophical conundrum I think which started the whole field going.

Vincent:  Are they living, spores?

Jonathan:  Yes, probably, but very very slowly.

Read more: TWiM #46 transcript

TWiM #6 transcript

Here is a transcript of TWiM episode #6, "Antibacterial therapy with bacteriophage: Fact or fiction?". Thanks to Steve Stokowski for transcription.

The transcript is also available as a pdf file - click here to download.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Cliff Mintz, Michael Schmidt, and Elio Schaechter

Aired 04 May 2011

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Vincent: This Week in Microbiology is brought to you by the American Society for Microbiology at MicroWorld.org/TWiM.

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This Week in Microbiology, episode number six. Recorded April 29th, 2011.

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Hi everybody, I am Vincent Racaniello and this is TWiM, the podcast that explores unseen life on earth.

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Joining me today from Princeton, New Jersey is Cliff Mintz.

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Cliff: Hello Vincent.

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Vincent: How are you Cliff?

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Cliff: I am fine.

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Vincent: How is Princeton, New Jersey? Is it treating you well?

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Cliff: It is treating me well. It is cloudy and just typical spring weather in New Jersey.

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Vincent: Yes, it is cloudy here.

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Let us see what the weather is down in South Carolina where Michael Schmidt would be. Welcome Michael.

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Michael: Thank you Vincent. We have spring again. We had summer for a few days and then all those horrific tornados came through and fortunately spring came back once the bad weather cleared out of the southeast.

Read more: TWiM #6 transcript