MicrobeWorld

Jonathan Eisen is a professor at the  Read More

A strain of MRSA that causes bloodstream infections is five times more lethal than other strains and has shown to have some resistance to the potent antibiotic drug vancomycin used to treat MRSA, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.

The study found that 50 percent of the patients infecte... Read More

A musical extravaganza on the importance and execution of laboratory safety as presented by puppets.
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Amy Wallace, freelance writer and editor-at-large at Los Angeles Magazine, has published a in-depth feature in Wired exploring why many Americans shun vaccinations and place trust in the pseudoscience around topics such as autism, H1N1 and many other illnesses. While a good chunk of this article... Read More

Kellogg, the nation's largest cereal maker, is being called to task by critics who object to the swine flu-conscious claim now bannered in bold lettering on the front of Cocoa Krispies cereal boxes: "Now helps support your child's IMMUNITY."

Of all claims on cereal boxes, "this one belongs in... Read More

Your body is home to 10 times as many microbes as its own cells. But they can be quite picky about where they will settle – and what other bacteria they'll share fences with.

That's the conclusion of the most comprehensive map ever of the microbial communities flourishing in the human body.
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Vincent, Dick, Alan, and Cliff answer questions from listeners on swine influenza origins, transmission, virulence, and vaccines, HIV and AIDS, and more.

Host links Read More

There is definitely something haunting about rendering the invisible “visible,” particularly when it comes to dissecting layers of the corporeal self. Austrian designer Sonja Bäumel goes one step further with her “(In)visible Membranes: Life on the Human Body and Its Design Applications” project... Read More

Overweight people get heart disease and diabetes – and more severe swine flu – because their fat triggers inflammation, an immune response meant to fight infection. Now the protein responsible for this sequence of events may have been found.

Jerrold Olefsky and colleagues at the University of... Read More

The 10 tomatoes sitting in a Tupperware tub at the Food and Drug Administration seem to be doing nothing more than rotting, slowly. But an invisible battle is raging on the surface of the fruit, with provocative implications for food safety and the war that humans have been waging against bacter... Read More

Dr. Larry Brilliant talks about how smallpox was eradicated from the planet, and calls for a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread. Read More

Bioengineering students from around the world converged on MIT this weekend in what has become an annual ritual in synthetic biology--iGEM, the international genetically engineered machines competition. Among the finalists this year were "GluColi", a new generation of glue made by bacteria, a bi... Read More

Antibacterial soap, hand sanitizer and antibiotics are all substances that we use in an attempt to kill bacteria that might make us sick.Whether we are concerned about getting strep throat, bacterial meningitis or something else, these prevention methods can offer protection.

However, some ba... Read More

For thousands of years an undesirable and persistent companion has been travelling with man wherever he goes. Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterium that causes leprosy, has only one known natural host -- humankind. And because of man's many travels, this bacillus has colonized the entire earth. It... Read More

Los temas que vamos a tratar esta semana son: combustible fabricado a base de azúcar, microbiología frente a diseño inteligente y zoológicos en la mira.

Combustible fabricado a base de azúcar... Read More

A musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn - Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series. Read More

(from http://www.ted.com) Venice, Italy is sinking. To save it, Rachel Armstrong says we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself. She proposes a not-quite-alive material that does its own repairs and sequesters carbon, too. Read More

I was given a package of zinc lozenges when I contracted a cold a few weeks ago. That got me interested in the effect of zinc on rhinovirus replication. As a consequence I began a series of experiments to understand the mechanism of inhibition of viral replication by this metal. It's unusual tha... Read More

Trichophyton mentagrophytes colony on Sabouraud's agar (1.54) Read More

When humans eventually travel to Mars and beyond, they'll have plenty to worry about along with the discomforts of eating freeze-dried food and drinking their own urine. A new report says they will probably be really sick, to boot -- from flare-ups of E. coli, chicken pox or staph infections.

... Read More