Microbiology

Love, Marriage And Fruit Flies- Bacteria Determine Who We Marry?

B acteria that we carry in our bodies may help decide who we marry, according to a new study that analyzes the gut of...a small fruit fly.  A group of molecular biologists recently demonstrated that the symbiotic bacteria inside a fruit fly greatly influen ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 12 2011 - 7:27pm

Why name that arsenic microbe GFAJ-1?

It was hard to miss the arsenic microbe news last week.  Heck, I was in the woods of Pennsylvania with no cell phone access much less Internet and I knew about it.    The NASA hype machine and mass media's need to sell eyeballs made sure of that. ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 4 2010 - 7:49pm

Your next hard drive- bacteria

DNA computing and storage has been on the horizon for most of this decade but never gone beyond the intellectual exercise stage.   Storage limitations were far too small to merit applied science efforts so it was clever but that was the extent of it. That ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 5 2010 - 11:00am

X-ray structure helps us understand Chikungunya virus glycoproteins

Chikungunya virus has been terrorizing some parts of the world by causing disease in humans through  Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. They belong to a family called alpha virus. Virulence can be attributed to the glycoproteins, E1 and E2 which also line the s ...

Blog Post - Anirudha Lakshmin... - Dec 6 2010 - 11:00am

Another Titanic Mystery- Brand New Bacterial Species Discovered

The RMS Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 and then was found by searchers in 1977, still has a few mysteries left.    A brand-new bacterial species dubbed Halomonas titanicae by scientists from Dalhousie University in Halifax and the Universit ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 6 2010 - 12:34pm

Squid Bacteria Point the Way to a New Kind of Medicine

Cephalove recently had a couple of lovely posts about that most famous of squid symbioses: the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes and the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri. It's become a model system for all kinds of questions about bacteria-host r ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 7 2010 - 1:03am

Maize Versus Fungi: And The Winner Is...

Most are unaware of it but the evolutionary arms race between plants and plant diseases is always happening around us.   Fungi are a major cause of plant diseases and are responsible for large-scale harvest failure in crops like maize and other cereals all ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 11 2010 - 10:46am

Mold Gets Jet Lag Too

It's no secret that humans are not the only species with circadian rhythm- a biological clock.   Studying red bread mold may teach us how our own internal clock works and by experimenting with the fungus’ response to light and darkness, researchers ca ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 29 2010 - 11:13am

Biopunk: Hack Your DNA

Is biology too important to be left in the hands of experts?   Maybe. Americans like stories about underdogs who start as outsiders but then become the very core of what being 'inside' means.    Think Einstein and the patent office.  Or Mendel, a ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Mar 28 2011 - 4:56pm

People Fall Into Three Categories Of Gut Microbiota

BRUSSELS, April 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/-- Every person's intestinal system falls into one of three clearly distinguishable types of gut microbiota, comparable to blood types. These types are not related to race, native country or diet, according to a n ...

Article - Anna Ohlden - Apr 25 2011 - 10:26am