Bacteria

Bacteria are found in large numbers all over the human body where there is a channel to the outside world, for example in the gut, lungs, and surface of the skin.

The popular Fox television show “New Girl” provides laughs each week, but last night it veered a bit off course with its Thanksgiving episode.

The post this week is part of  a blog-swap with Sarah Shailes (@SarahShailes) of the Plant Scientist blog. You can read my post on plant defences against bacteria over at her blog.

From the point of view of a micro-organism, the human body is a prime piece of real estate. For those bacteria and fungi that can avoid or fight off the immune systems, a human provides a whole range of moist, nutrient-filled little spaces in which to live.

Off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula lies a dark, still, deep place. It is called the Soledad Basin, and in it lies a garden of bacteria so large you can see them with your own eyes.

We've never had an environment so rife with cheap caloric energy. The population-level rise in obesity is a natural response to this situation. 

An invention by physicists could make testing for bacteria as simple as slapping a sticker on food and waving a handheld scanner. Wayt Gibbs reports

Cheese is a fascinating model for studying the intersection of human and microbial cultures. My project with Sissel Tolaas explores these connections through the process of making cheese using microbes sampled from the human body.

While I’m getting used to my new arrival the iGEM Team from Copenhagen have kindly provided a great guest post about their work over the summer.

The treatment has been found to halt recurrences of Clostridium difficile bacteria, but a commercial pill is still far off

Flu season is almost upon us, so millions of us are already rolling up our sleeves to get the annual shot. This jab is formulated to introduce our immune system to this year’s circulating strains of the virus so that it will remember how to make the specialized antibodies to fend it off the viral [...]

When patients check into a hospital, they expect doctors there to fix what ails them, but one in 20 patients seeking care at hospitals contract a health care–based infection.