MicrobeWorld

In this blog entry, I discuss the perennial problem for educators: helping students find study strategies that help them reach their educational goals. I have found that student-generated study material is most helpful...and is sometimes quite artistic! Read More

I joined Buddhini Samarasinghe and Scott Lewis on a Science Sunday Hangout on Air to talk about my career in virology: how I came to be interested in viruses, and what goes on in my laboratory. You can find hangouts and more at the ScienceSunday community.

{youtube}WpLH4gRk9gc{/youtub... Read More

El podcast del microbio Nº 378 summarize an article published in Nature communications by Ribeiro-Viana R et al. on the use of Virus-like glycodendrinanoparticles to block viral infection. El podcast del microbio Nº 3... Read More

18th International Bioinformatics Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology
(VEME 2013)

VEME 2013 will be organized August 25th – August 30th, 2013 at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, U.S.A.

The workshop will have the following modules:

• 'Phylogene... Read More

The first video in brief set of three lectures by Joseph DeRisi gives a very general overview of malaria, the disease and Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of the most deadly form. Basic research as well as drug development efforts will also be covered in parts two and three of this ser... Read More

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.

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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 Read More

A blog and a youtube channel has been created with the aim to join two worlds: microbes and movies.

They have an educational scope. The movie fragments included anotations related to microbiology. The first movie comented is "Arrowsmith" (1931) directed by John Ford and based in the novel of... Read More

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... Read More

For what may be the first time, researchers have discovered a virus inside a host with a non-standard nuclear genetic code — one that differs from the standard genetic code that almost all living things use to produce proteins.


“The finding is significant because it shows that these viruses... Read More

There was much written concerning the research published earlier this month in Science, where researchers from China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute reported creating an avian H5N1 (highly pathogenic) and pandemic 2009 H1N1 (easily transmissible) hybrid, that according to them, achieved ... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Roberto Cattaneo, ... Read More

Rocco Mancinelli, an astrobiologist from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, discusses how research has taken the first step to understanding how organisms survive and evolve outside of planet earth. Read More

In this blog post, I show how students in my freshman "introduction to cell and molecular biology" course used "creativity"-based approaches to better understand concepts in the course---as they prepare for their upcoming final exam. I believe that this kind of approach truly helps with student... Read More

Ploidy is not a term that has much currency in bacteriology, but it does make an appearance once in a while. Ploidy, as per the dictionary, is the number of chromosomes per cell. It’s a term widely used for cells that are generally uninucleated, such as our gametes and our somatic cells. The pro... Read More

During my visit to the University of Vermont today I had lunch with seven talented Microbiology Ph.D. students. One of them asked me what was an important quality to have for achieving success in science. I said without hesitation, ‘Be curious’. It’s the answer I always give. Being curious is th... Read More

The second video in brief set of three lectures by Joseph DeRisi. Read More

On this Mothers' Day, I reflect on the role my late mother had on my own decision to become a scientist. We all owe are mothers a great deal, and not just for the mitochondria! So hurray for mothers everywhere! Read More

Elio Schaechter of Small Things Considered ponders a recent discovery that small multicellular animals, members of the Loricifera and metazoa groups, are able to survive in an anoxic environment known as L’Atalante Basin, a brine “lake” at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

"Life without air—a ... Read More

Moselio Schaechter of the Small Things Considered blog declares scientific writing is improving and highlights several articles in the 2010 issue of the Annual Review of Microbiology to illustrate his point.

"Just when some people believe that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, here... Read More