Microbiology

Comparison and contrast of DNA Staining methods for possible use in secondary school biology programs

Abstract:   Four types of DNA stains were evaluated based on safety, ease of use, cost, and resolution.   Ethidium Bromide was tested primarily as a comparison to the standard stain normally used in education, industry, and research.   While price is high ...

Blog Post - Keith Zimmerman - Jun 22 2010 - 9:49am

Gabon Fossils Reveal Complex, Multicellular Life 2 Billion Years Old

The existence of multicellular organisms,  the first complex life forms (made up of several cells) has been extended from about 600 million years in the past to over 2 billion years ago, according to research published in Nature. That means organized life ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 3 2010 - 12:21pm

Who has eaten the Gulf of Mexico oil

People have been wondering where the Gulf of Mexico oil has gone. Some years ago our friend Dr Banwari Lal from TERI New Delhi has been working on some microorganisms that degrade the oil by eating it or metabolizing it. Perhaps, there could be attack by s ...

Blog Post - Ashwani Kumar - Aug 7 2010 - 6:20am

Publications on Meiofauna- Big sulfur bacteria

The ISME Journal advance online publication 15 July 2010; doi: 10.1038/ismej.2010.106 Big sulfur bacteria, Bo Barker Jørgensen, Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Geomicrobiology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Download here ...

Blog Post - Víctor Aramayo - Aug 24 2010 - 1:52pm

Would Life Sciences Researchers Use An arXiv-like Preprint Service?

One thing I see a lot of, given the kind of community we are and so the kinds of people I read to see what's happening in the rest of the world, is how things have to change.  I wrote a piece earlier on Open science and the march of history where I di ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Aug 24 2010 - 3:14pm

Glycolipids Clue In How Tuberculosis Avoids Destruction Inside Cells

Tuberculosis (TB)  is a contagious disease of the lungs and other organs caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (or M. tuberculosis) and which infects roughly a third of the world's population.  5-10% of those in the infected population become sick or i ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 9 2010 - 5:03pm

Beer Proteome Deciphered- Get Your Peptide Goggles On

Quick, what's the world's favorite beverage? If you said 'beer', you're wrong, water and tea are way ahead, but it means the most comprehensive deciphering of the beer's proteome (the set of proteins that make beer "beer& ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 3 2015 - 5:27pm

Biomonitoring- How Bacteria Can Make Oil Fields More Efficient

Oil fields are highly specific ecosystems- they contain no oxygen and the temperature, pressure and salinity are often high, which makes them home to a very particular community of bacteria. Geert van der Kraan, a doctoral student who received his Ph.D. fr ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 8 2010 - 4:02am

Me, you and we... thats what the bacteria talk!

Me, you and we... thats what the bacteria talk! Even more, like different people and races have different languages, different bacteria use different chemical 'words'. Broadly classifying, the gram negative bacteria use small molecules like acyl ...

Blog Post - Viduthalai R. Regina - Oct 26 2010 - 2:09pm

Biofilm Infections: Horror Shows Not Made In Hollywood

Many bacteria spend much of their existence within a matrix that they create, called biofilm. Biofilm consists of mucopolysaccharide (or slime-like, think “The Blob” from the 1950s) structures produced by microorganisms as a defense mechanism against thei ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 6 2010 - 11:20am