Microbiology

-- The Human Microbiome Project (HMP). If asked what it is, perhaps you would see that the name resembles that of the Human Genome Project and guess that it is a large effort devoted to some sort of DNA sequencing involving humans. This is partially…

Most visits to a doctor or hospital occur when a patient feels under the weather, but is unsure of the cause of the symptoms or the best way to treat them. For example, sniffles and a sore throat could be caused by seasonal allergies or the flu, each of…

-- Two groups of scientists — one based in the Netherlands and the other in the United States — have carried out detailed studies on the experimental evolution of the A/H5N1 virus, more commonly known as the “bird flu”. Public health officials have…

-- From a distance, malaria looks like a disease that we should have eradicated by now. Scientists have known for many years that most dangerous malaria cases are caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite. This parasite is transmitted to humans…

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-- For the first time, recent advances in technology and space exploration have made the prospect of detecting evidence for life outside of our Solar System a foreseeable possibility. The pursuit of this evidence and the desire to learn more about the…

Adapted from image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center The World is Full of Bacteria There are over a billion microbes in just one liter of ocean water [1]. The same goes for a liter of soil. As the human population reaches 7 billion individuals…

-- On a Monday morning, as he was sorting through Petri dishes of Staphylococci he had left on his laboratory bench before going on vacation, Dr. Alexander Fleming noticed one that had become contaminated with mold. Fungal contamination was not…

-- Every organism is an incredibly complex machine whose biological processes benefit from 3.6 billion years of refinement through natural selection. Thus, it should not be surprising that designing biological systems is still difficult for scientists…

-- The idea that we could grow fuel from a renewable resource is incredibly exciting. Researchers have been hard at work developing biofuels that will allow us to run our society using easily renewable resources. These efforts have gained a lot of media…