Microbiology

Designer Viruses Could Be The New Antibiotics

Bacteria under attack by a flock of bacteriophages. Credit: Graham Beards /Wikimedia Commons By Luc Henry, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ...

Article - The Conversation - Oct 14 2014 - 10:01am

How Bacterial Species Evolve Antibiotic Resistance

Given a critical change in the environment, how exactly do species adapt?  ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 14 2014 - 6:30pm

Fecal Transplant Might Mitigate Lupus

Can probiotic yogurt help with lupus? While most of science disagrees, corporate marketing departments have embraced every chance to imply their product helps with digestion and whatever else can sell product. A new paper in   Applied and Environmental Mi ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 20 2014 - 6:30pm

Genetically Modified Stem Cells Kill Brain Tumors

There may soon be a new way to use stem cells in the fight against brain cancer. A team has created a way to genetically engineer stem cells so that they can produce and secrete tumor-killing toxins that eradicate cancer cells remaining in mouse brains af ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 24 2014 - 12:54pm

MRSA Bugs In Hospitals- Livestock Implicated

A recent study has found that some Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bugs in United Kingdom hospitals can be traced back to a type of bacteria found in farm animals. A strain of drug-resistant bacteria carried by some livestock – Staphylo ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 3 2014 - 12:46pm

Human Gut Bacteria Much Different Than Apes

The microbes living in people's guts are much less diverse than those in humans' closest relatives, the African apes. What does that mean? No one knows, but the microbiome is all the latest rage in marketing, with probiotics advertised on televi ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 3 2014 - 9:45pm

Separating Gut Bacteria Hype From Science

Credit: Filip Bunkens/Flickr By Meredith Knight, Genetic Literacy Project Who wants a healthy gut? Apparently a lot of people. T he probiotics industry is expected to reach $45 billion annually in the next 4 years, just selling add-ons to the bacteria we ...

Article - Genetic Literacy ... - Nov 5 2014 - 10:17am

Gut Bacteria Blamed For Heart Disease

It's hard to have our steak and eat it too. Red meat was once implicated in a wave of studies and linked to heart disease and other maladies, before being absolved. But the microbiome and the surge in advertising for probiotics to promote 'healt ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 4 2014 - 1:29pm

37 Trillion Invaders: We Are Not Alone

The adult human body is made up of about 37 trillion cells. Microbes, mainly bacteria, outnumber body cells by 10 to 1. This huge community of microbes, called the microbiome, affects the health, development and evolution of all multicellular organisms, i ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 10 2014 - 6:42pm

Wash Your Cutting Board: The Science Of How Campylobacter Exploits Chicken Juice

Campylobacter 's persistence in the kitchen is boosted by organic matter from chicken carcasses- "chicken juice"- and that means better cleaning of surfaces used for food preparation is an easy way to keep illness from happening. Campylobac ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 14 2014 - 6:21pm