January 31, 2015

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January Link Dump

An abbreviated list of cool microbe/food/immune system things I saw last month, but didn’t manage to write about. Microbiology: Audiommunity on a superantigen made by Staphylococcus aureus.

By Kevin Bonham

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

An abbreviated list of cool microbe/food/immune system things I saw last month, but didn't manage to write about.

Microbiology:

Audiommunity on a superantigen made by Staphylococcus aureus. This is a podcast that I produce with some friends from graduate school - we've been on hiatus for a couple of months, but we're back!

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A new species of mold discovered on Italian Salami - Named "Penicillium salamii." Creative...

Xkcd on non-microbial commensals. No, this is not a real thing.

Special issue of Science in the News all about infectious disease. A lot of great stuff in there.

Food:

Ben Lilly sheds light on whether Americans don't know about DNA in food. This is a statistic I first heard about years ago and cited uncritically (though I always had trouble finding the source). Always good to be reminded that we can't be uncritical of stats that fit our worldview, lest we look as unscientific as the people we criticize. via Christina Agapakis.

BrewPi - A way to control the heat of your ferments. I need to learn how to do this stuff - DIY computing is so cool.

Other:

A look at democratizing science. And what does that even mean?

Michael Eisen, founder of PLoS, did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit about open access science and the problems with peer review. He articulated a lot of the things I've been thinking/writing about for a while. Also, he actually responded to some tough questions, and had a very open dialogue. Refreshing to see.

Kevin Bonham is a Curriculum Fellow in the Microbiology and Immunobiology department at Harvard Medical school. He received his PhD from Harvard, where he studied how the cells of the immune system detect the presence of infectious microbes. Find him on Google+, Reddit.

More by Kevin Bonham

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