When can a really bad virus be used to do something good? When we can use it to learn. The human immunodeficiency virus, cause of AIDS, scourge of countries, and recent focus of ScienceBlogs; like humans, evolves. As one of my fellow ScienceBloggers noted, few biological systems demonstrate evolution as ...
I probably shouldn't find this amusing, but... Back a few years ago, a friend of mine worked at a biotech company in Seattle that had large windows looking out onto Puget Sound. They always cheered when the Navy ships came in, 'cause they knew it meant they'd have more work ...
Well, probably getting a stipend to help you do it. And, the really cool thing is that's part of the deal! Hustle, hustle the deadline is March 7th, and all the contact info is below. The NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program in Environmental Microbiology at UNLV is accepting applications ...
How do microbiologists determine which microbe caused a disease? As Tara has eloquently described ( I, II), we are covered with bacteria and other microbes. A reasonable question then, is when we get sick, how do we which little devil deserves the blame? In many cases, pathogens ( disease-causing organisms) ...
This wasn't in the lab, but it was an accident, and it was funny later on. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about storing bacterial cultures in a refrigerator. After all, bacteria on a petri plate, inside of a plastic bag, are kind of stuck. They can't get out of the ...
This wasn't in the lab, but it was an accident, and it was funny later on. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about storing bacterial cultures in a refrigerator. After all, bacteria on a petri plate, inside of a plastic bag, are kind of stuck. They can't get out of the ...
It could be geosmin. We encountered geosmin once before in our butter but most people notice it, about this time of year, in their tap water. Geosmin is a volatile compound that's made by soil bacteria like Streptomyces, as well as some plants like sugar beets, and cyanobacteria. It gets ...
It's been interesting to watch as microbiology's own cold fusion debate has been raging. It began with an extraordinary claim about bacteria using arsenate as a replacement when phosphate concentrations are low (1). It progressed when at least two scientist / bloggers ( here, and here) ( not bloggers! the ...
or E. coli, or perhaps a little Giardia ( just to loosen things up, of course), or maybe even Herpes. All these scary pathogens become works of art, when Infectious Awareables puts the images on neckties. And what could be funnier than a pair of boxer shorts full of Gonorrhea?
