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Fall is on the horizon, bringing with it freshly-sharpened pencils, vibrantly-colored leaves, and of course - the annual influenza season. In this video you will learn about the microbiology of this fascinating virus and why vaccination not only protects ourselves but higher-risk individuals all...
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Smart viruses find ways around host defenses. In the case of the influenza viruses A and B, rapid genetic changes and resistance to available therapies make it hard to combat flu epidemics in humans. Mortality rates for influenza B viruses are higher than those reported for seasonal influenza A ...
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An international team of scientists led by Indiana University chemist Michael S. VanNieuwenhze and biologist Yves Brun has discovered a revolutionary new method for coloring the cell wall of bacterial cells to determine how they grow, in turn providing a new, much-needed tool for the development...
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The extent to which hospital superbugs are being transmitted via the air needs to be investigated, experts say.
It comes after a Leeds University study has added to a growing body of evidence about the ability of bacteria to float on air currents. Researchers carried out lab tests on a bac... Read More 
Specialized immune cells recognize the vitamin B synthesized by bacteria and yeast, and this signal sets off their fight against infection, scientists say.
The study, published in the journal Nature, is the first to reveal that the highly abundant mucosal associated invariant T cells (MAIT ce... Read More Jake writes:
Hello Vincent, I've been listening to your TWiM podcast now for a few weeks as I am a student at SDSU taking a microbial genetics class with stanley maloy. It be be ... Read More 
Lately, we've been learning more and more about the teeming masses of bacteria inside our bodies - essentially trillions of tiny organisms that make us sick and keep us healthy.
Now two scientists at the University of Colorado have dared to ask what kinds of bacteria lives inside our mouths. ... Read More 
The genomes of most higher organisms contain sequences from retroviral genomes called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). These are DNA copies of retroviral RNAs that are integrated into the germ line DNA of the host, and passed from parent to offspring. In most species the infections that lead to g...
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If you're a pet-owner who kisses your dog on the mouth, you might want to think twice.
A new study in the journal Archives of Oral Biology suggests that it's possible for disease-causing oral bacteria to be exchanged between dogs and their owners. Japanese researchers examined dental plaqu... Read More 
If you were a bacterium, the virus M13 might seem innocuous enough. It insinuates more than it invades, setting up shop like a freeloading houseguest, not a killer. Once inside it makes itself at home, eating your food, texting indiscriminately. Recently, however, bioengineers at Stanford Univer...
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If you were a passenger aboard the meteorite from Mars bearing down on the town of Tata, Morocco in July 2011, you would be in a decidedly unenviable position. For one thing you’d be a bacterium — a nifty Martian bacterium, to be sure, but still. For another thing you’d be either freeze-dried o...
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The New Yorker once called virologist Nathan Wolfe "the world's most prominent virus hunter." Wolfe, the director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, spends his days tracking emerging infectious diseases before they turn into deadly pandemics.
In The Viral Storm, Wolfe describes how m... Read More
Teens struggling with skin-scarring acne may soon find relief from an unusual source.
Scientists have used genetic sequencing to identify 11 new viruses with the potential to kill the out-of-control bacteria that leads to intense breakouts. The findings add to an emerging body of research tha... Read More 
The circuit is designed to act as the controller in synthetic bacteria that monitor and modify their environment.
By force of habit we tend to assume computers are made of silicon, but there is actually no necessary connection between the machine and the material. All that an engineer needs... Read More 
Lycoming College senior Jordan Krebs was a 2012 award recipient of the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) Undergraduate Research Capstone Program.
Krebs, a biology and chemistry double major from Roaring Spring, Pa., was one of only seven students to receive the award, and was the only... Read More 
Along with the main elements of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, magnesium and sulphur, organic organisms also require trace amounts of certain other elements, including some metals. The most useful thing about the metals required by the body is that their outer electron orbitals are very close togethe...
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This colorized negative-stained transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicts the ultrastructural details of a number of influenza virus particles, or “virions”. A member of the taxonomic family Orthomyxoviridae, the influenza virus is a single-stranded RNA organism
The flu is a contagious r... Read More 
Seven decades after penicillin revolutionized the treatment of infections by killing bacteria, medicine is poised for another revolution.
The central idea: Many bacteria, rather than creating disease, actually protect against it. So, rather than indiscriminately killing all bacteria, a growin... Read More |
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