Which cause more severe diseases in humans, RNA or DNA viruses?
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Which cause more severe diseases in humans, RNA or DNA viruses?
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Posted on September 30, 2021 at 04:00 AM in Talmudic Questions | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Roberto
What with the all the talk about CRISPR, the renewed interest in phage therapy, the widespread occurrence of huge phages (to mention but a few of the reasons phage are constantly in the news these days), it's no exaggeration to say that once again in biology "phage are all the rage"...
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Posted on September 27, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Roberto
While reading a review yesterday, I recalled a conversation I had with a student nearly forty years ago. He did not appear interested in the subject of my lectures – bacterial genetics and physiology – so I was curious to know the reasons why.
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Posted on September 23, 2021 at 04:00 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Pathogens | Permalink | Comments (0)
An electrochemical scaffold that delivers safe doses of hypochlorous acid to treat wound infections in humans, and a method for sampling and monitoring bacteria and viruses or surfaces using plain paper stickers.
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Posted on September 23, 2021 at 03:59 AM in This Week in Microbiology | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Janie
The foundation of much of modern civilization? Sand, actually. It's a key ingredient of concrete, and to construct any building you need a lot of it. It has to be sand from oceans, beaches, riverbeds, deltas, lakes. All that desert sand made slippery-smooth by wind erosion won't do...
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Posted on September 20, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Roberto
Back in 1980, when I was a post-doc in the San Francisco Bay Area, I began to develop a taste for what I considered a truly unique bread: San Francisco sourdough. There was a certain mystique to it, everyone familiar with it claimed there was nothing like it anywhere else...
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Posted on September 16, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Ecology, Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Stanley Falkow
A graduate student came to my office recently to say that she was increasingly bothered by anxiety and the ‘terror’ of having to speak at laboratory meetings. She had also learned a month ago that she was expected to lecture to a class organized by her mentor. The thought of…
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Posted on September 13, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Odds & Ends, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Mechas Zambrano and Roberto
Where do the microbes that colonize newly emerging ecosystems come from? Plants are ideal systems to address this fundamental question in microbial ecology. When a seed germinates, new ecosystems emerge as the plant grows and acquires its microbiota...
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Posted on September 09, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Ecology | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Christoph
I wrote in the first part that "in the the second part I will consider their extravagant periplasmic(!) flagella. There will be no "loose ends" left in either part, I promise." Spoiler: no "loose ends" but a (knowledge) gap in the middle, that is, when it comes to cell division in Borrelia. Here it goes...
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Posted on September 06, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Janie
It's probably fair to say that people, when afraid, turn to stories and to science for solace. The last year and a half has solidified that: the yarns spun range from conspiracy theories to escapist novels that transport the reader far, far away from bleaker realities (The Midnight Library phenomenon, anyone?)...
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Posted on September 02, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Book Reviews, Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)