Microbiology

What Can We Learn From African Apes About Our “Second Genome”?

         “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” T.  Dolzhansy (Russian Geneticist)          “We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.”                                              Richard Dawkins ...

Blog Post - Akiva Gross - Feb 15 2015 - 10:03pm

Want To Consume Cow Feces? Have Some Raw Milk

Would you like some Campylobacter or E. Coli today? Raw milk in 26 U.S. states is now the best place to get it, since most readers of Science 2.0 are not going to have the opportunity to buy chicken from a street vendor in China. ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Feb 18 2015 - 4:22pm

CRISPR: Bacterial Viral Defense Targets Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

A new genetic therapeutic technique that has the potential to treat more than half of the patients suffering from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), according to a new study.  ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2015 - 11:03am

A Side-Effect Of Antibiotics May Not Be A Side-effect At All, It May Be A Feature

Just about everyone in the developed world has taken an antibiotic to treat a bacterial infection and the instructions are well-known; don't stop after you start to feel better, even though you know they are killing machines. Yet the picture may be mo ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 23 2015 - 4:26pm

Oats May Be Natural, But So Is Their Toxic Mold

Oats are often touted for lowering bad cholesterol,  improving the immune system, lowering blood pressure and, more recently, being gluten-free, but a new study finds that some oat-based breakfast cereals in the U.S. contain a mold-related toxin called och ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2015 - 11:19am

Retroviruses: Human Embryos May Be Affected By Ancient Viral Invaders

By: Charles Q. Choi, Inside Science (Inside Science)-- Viruses that invaded the DNA of humanity's ancestors millions of years ago may now play critical roles in the earliest stages of human development, researchers say. The discovery sheds light on t ...

Article - Charles Choi - Jul 11 2015 - 8:19pm

Yellow Rust Threatens Wheat Production- Field Pathogenomics To The Rescue

Wheat is a critical staple crop that provides 20% of the calories and over 25% of the protein consumed by humans. 'Yellow rust' caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (PST) is one of the plant's major diseases and is found ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 26 2015 - 9:45am

How Small Can Life Get? These Ultra-Small Bacteria May Be At The Limit

There is microbiology and then there is micro-micro-microbiology. The existence of ultra-small bacteria has been debated for decades, but now there is comprehensive electron microscopy and DNA-based evidence of the elusive microbes that are about as small ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 27 2015 - 5:35pm

Microbes Cleaning Fukushima Soil

Salt-loving, halophilic, microbes could donate proteins to clean up radioactive strontium and caesium ions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan. The X-ray structure of a beta-lactamase enzyme from one such microbe, the halophil ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2015 - 11:08am

Optimizing Tomato Immune System Could Lead To Better Bacteria Protection

In parts of the country that do not have icebergs washing up on shore or falling from the sky, it is almost spring planting season.  For tomatoes, that mean unless you use a toxic organic or synthetic chemical, there is a chance of bacterial infection, lea ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 12 2015 - 7:30am