Microbiology

Oritavancin: One And Done Antibiotic Could Reduce MRSA

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become the poster child for antibiotic resistance in large part because of a larger problem: patients tend to stop taking antibiotics once they feel better. In such instances, the surviving bacteria m ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 4 2014 - 5:39pm

How Do Phytoplankton Survive A Scarcity Of Phosphorous?

Phytoplankton are tiny, photosynthetic organisms and essential to life on Earth, supplying us with roughly half the oxygen we breathe. Phytoplankton have their own requirements to carry out critical cellular activity- the element phosphorus. But in some p ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 5 2014 - 10:53pm

White Bread Redeemed? Study Says It Helps Boost 'Good' Microbes In The Gut

You have seen lots of claims about probiotics- Activia and that stuff the sportscaster sells. You can save your money. Anything you are consuming with that kind of impact could just as easily be doing as much harm as good, but your yogurt is not making a ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 11 2014 - 12:46pm

Watermelon Snow: The Secret Impact Of Microbes On Climate Change Models

During a three week field trip, ecologists studied an entire glacier and found that microbes drastically reduce surface reflectivity and have an impact on the amount of sunlight that is reflected into space. The researchers say they work will help improve ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 11 2014 - 9:30pm

When Is Antibiotic Resistance A Good Thing? In The Gut Microbiome

Populating the gastrointestinal (GI) tracts of mice with Bacteroides species producing a specific enzyme helped protect the good commensal bacteria from the harmful effects of antibiotics, according to a new paper in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 13 2014 - 6:01am

Not Just Lyme Disease: Blacklegged Tick Bite Can Pack Double Pathogen Punch

People who get a blacklegged tick bite may be getting more pathogens than they expected.  A new study found that ticks are almost twice as likely as previously believed to be infected with two pathogens—the bacterium that causes Lyme disease and the proto ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 20 2014 - 9:53am

Special Secretion Systems: A Bacterial Ballistic System

Many pathogenic bacteria use special secretion systems to deliver toxic proteins into host cells and now researchers have determined the structure of a crucial part of one of these systems – which are possible targets for novel antibiotics.  ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 21 2014 - 11:30pm

Smartphones Closely Resemble The Microbiome Of Their Owners

Smartphones are everywhere, and they may tell something about you that you didn't realize could be told. When we touch things we give it our 'germs' and that knowledge could tell researchers something about our personal microbial world. Our ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 24 2014 - 9:31am

Specialized Microbes Clean Stubborn Chemicals From The Environment

Chlorinated chemicals perform a host of societally useful functions, but they're not perfect. Once their use life has ended, they can become environmental contaminants and even resistant to bioremediation. In a series of new studies, Anca Delgado, a ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 29 2014 - 2:49pm

Fight Parasites, Unleash A Dormant Virus

Signals from the immune system that help repel common parasites  like tapeworms, roundworms and other helminths can inadvertently cause a dormant viral infection to become active again, which may explain how complex interactions between infectious agents ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 27 2014 - 4:30pm