Posts

May 15, 2013

9:47 PM | Explain Your Experiments Using Animation

For visual learners, nothing is more frustrating than verbal insructions that are not accompanied by visual queues. Scientific experiments often involve detailed instructions that may be tedious and hard to follow. It is important for scientists to convey the “big picture” of what they are tryiing to accomplish in order for their work to be [...]

7:56 PM | Combing the Earth One Genome at a Time: In Pursuit of “The Next Big Thing” in Sustainability

There is one thing that can be said about scientists: they’re never satisfied…thankfully. Observation and curiosity leave them on a never-ending quest to understand Mother Nature and improve humanity. One great example of this is the field of alternative energy science. Through the efforts of the Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) and Joint Genome Institute within […]

7:02 PM | WHO nCoV Update & Messaging - May 15th

# 7277 The World Health Organization has posted an update to their GAR Coronavirus page, which covers the two healthacare workers reported as being infected (see KSA: Two Health Care Workers Infected With nCoV ) in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia yesterday. The WHO also used their twitter account @WHO to announce today's update: Novel coronavirus infection - update 15 May 2013 - The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia has […]

6:42 PM | Florida restaurant hires own food safety firm after failing April inspection

Many chain restaurants and supermarkets have their own food safety staff or hire third-party auditors to stay ahead of local inspectors, and limit the risk of making customers sick. Wtsp TV reports that a month after a state inspector temporarily … Continue reading →

6:34 PM | The Eradication of Smallpox is a Blueprint for Polio’s Demise

The year 2018 has recently been declared our new target year for eliminating polio from the world by the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation and Rotary International. It is clear that the next five years will pose no small challenge; we have spent over 60 years vaccinating millions of children and adults since Salk and Sabin’s [...]

6:30 PM | Genomics of the Ratopolis

Today we have another in our series of guest posts by participants in the upcoming meeting on indoor evolution at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in June. Jason Munshi-South, currently an assistant professor of biology at Baruch College, studies the evolution and ecology of vertebrates in New York City. Every New Yorker has a rat story. Narrative elements of these tales often include municipal garbage cans or deserted subway platforms, and in the worst cases pant legs or toilets. […]

6:25 PM | Wrap-Up of Cell Symposium on Microbiome and Host Health

For a parasitologist with a major interest in novel technology like me the Cell Symposium on Microbiome and Host Health (#CMHH) was a challenging, yet stimulating tour de force in bacteriology and immunology, and I realise that gut fungi and protists still fly below the radar of intestinal microbiome research. The announced line-up of speakers was impressive, and although we missed e.g. Drs Peter Turnbaugh and Fergus Shanahan, we were still spoiled with brilliant talks. Most of the […]

Koren O, Knights D, Gonzalez A, Waldron L, Segata N, Knight R, Huttenhower C & Ley RE (2013). A guide to enterotypes across the human body: meta-analysis of microbial community structures in human microbiome datasets., PLoS computational biology, 9 (1) PMID: 23326225

Andersen LO, Vedel Nielsen H & Stensvold CR (2013). Waiting for the human intestinal Eukaryotome., The ISME journal, PMID: 23407309

Ivanov II & Honda K (2012). Intestinal commensal microbes as immune modulators., Cell host & microbe, 12 (4) 496-508. PMID: 23084918

Brown J, de Vos WM, Distefano PS, Doré J, Huttenhower C, Knight R, Lawley TD, Raes J & Turnbaugh P (2013). Translating the human microbiome., Nature biotechnology, 31 (4) 304-8. PMID: 23563424

Blaser M, Bork P, Fraser C, Knight R & Wang J (2013). The microbiome explored: recent insights and future challenges., Nature reviews. Microbiology, 11 (3) 213-7. PMID: 23377500

Citation

6:08 PM | Gay cowboy bar Flaming Saddles shut down by NYC health department; reopens next day

Gay cowboy bar Flaming Saddles was shut down by New York City’s Department of Health Monday, after an inspection revealed its problems in the kitchen. Mathew Katz of DNAinfo reports the hot spot — which features shirtless bartenders who two-step on the … Continue reading →

5:27 PM | Cow poop on roof study in Saskatchewan helps understanding of E. coli

Researchers in Regina are using cow manure set atop a roof to study how E. coli is able to survive through winter. “We have been made fun of,” Dena McMartin, a professor at the University of Regina, told CBC News … Continue reading →

5:17 PM | Keeping countryside E. coli at bay

Jacqui Kennedy, Birmingham City Council’s head of regulation and enforcement, writes in the Birmingham Mail that last year, Sutton Park National Nature Reserve was associated with the E. coli infection. A link was made between the cows that graze on … Continue reading →

4:14 PM | Thank You, Domain Archaea …

… and thank you to the late, great Carl Woese, for my post about both — Archaea Are More Wonderful Than You Know — was a finalist in the Best Biology Post category in this year’s ScienceSeeker Blog Awards. If you are interested in learning more about Woese and Archaea, I encourage you to listen [...]

12:39 PM | Over 100 Salmonella cases now linked to restaurant; 60 additional illnesses from unrelated outbreak at separate Canberra restaurant

ACT Chief Health Officer Dr Paul Kelly today said that ACT Health is currently investigating an outbreak of Salmonella gastroenteritis linked to a local restaurant. Over 100 suspected cases of gastrointestinal illness have been reported among persons who ate at the … Continue reading →

12:01 PM | Saudi nCoV: On The Outside Looking In

Credit KSA MOH Coronavirus Website # 7276 As often happens with infectious disease outbreaks around the world, we are getting two decidedly different takes on the spread of the novel coronavirus in Saudi Arabia. The `official version’, as provided by the KSA Ministry of Health, tends to be heavy on reassurance and light on epidemiological details. Case counts are released piecemeal in what I’ve begun to think of as their weekly `Dance of the 7 […]

11:33 AM | Asymptomatic carriage of Mycoplasma pneumoniae common in children

Simply finding a potentially-disease causing organism does not necessarily mean it's up to no good!The post Asymptomatic carriage of Mycoplasma pneumoniae common in children appeared first on MicrobiologyBytes.

8:29 AM | A systematic review in non-clinical research: a case of pathogen metabolites

Posted by Kasra Doctors and scientists in the field of clinical research are well acquainted to systematic reviews and their importance in clinical research. The important difference between a normal review and a systematic review is that in the latter the authors make sure (or at least try very hard) to include and cover all the […]

Bos, L., Sterk, P. & Schultz, M. (2013). Volatile Metabolites of Pathogens: A Systematic Review, PLoS Pathogens, 9 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003311

Citation

7:03 AM | 80 now sick from Salmonella, 13 in hospital, linked to Canberra restaurant; unrelated outbreak uncovered at second rest.

The number of confirmed Salmonella cases has skyrocketed to 80, and is believed to be the largest outbreak of its kind ever seen in the Australian Capital Territory. Thirteen people remain in hospital on Wednesday, with the number rising significantly … Continue reading →

2:44 AM | The four main causes of serious childhood diarrhea

Just four pathogens underpin most cases of serious diarrhea in children—the second leading killer of young children worldwide—according to a study published today in The Lancet. Nature.com reports that out of nearly 40 diarrhea-causing germs, the researchers identified four primary … Continue reading →

2:26 AM | Rodents roaming in NZ takeaway shop because of ‘poverty trap’

The owner of a Christchurch takeaway shop that was shut down after inspectors found “extensive rodent infestation” is blaming a “poverty trap” for the pest problem. The takeaway was closed after a council inspection in March found it breached food … Continue reading →

2:16 AM | Mr. Stirfry of Topeka corrects food safety problems

When I think stir-fry, I think Mr. Stirfry of Topeka (that’s in Kansas). According to CJOnline, coming into compliance with Kansas food safety standards has been a tough and expensive road, but Mr. Strifry is back on track, said co-owner … Continue reading →

1:36 AM | All aboard

Our resident sailor Dr Martin Ostrowski has escaped the laboratory once again to take part in an exciting adventure on the high seas. Dr Federico Lauro, an ARC DECRA fellow at UNSW and accomplished sailor, transformed the delivery of a yacht from Cape Town to Singapore into an amazing oceanographic research sampling expedition that will explore marine microbes and their involvement in some of the major global processes throughout some of the most under-sampled waters of the globe.The Indigo V, […]

12:25 AM | Bad idea to slap your restaurant inspector, or anyone, unless you’re on ice

Lorenzo Logoreci, a prominent San Francisco restaurateur, was cited by San Francisco police last Friday for slapping a city health inspector and faces battery charges. Logoreci, owner of Allegro Romano, a Russian Hill restaurant popular with city officials, is accused … Continue reading →

May 14, 2013

10:58 PM | Small Things Considered: Fecal Transplants in the “Good Old Days”

Small Things Considered: Fecal Transplants in the “Good Old Days”: This is an amazing anecdote from the 1950s about re-inoculating the gut microbiome of a patient post-surgery and post-antibiotic treatment. Not sure you could even get me to take those pills though… by Stanley Falkow: I had a conversation with some colleagues last week about “personalized medicine,” which has been transformed now into the term “precision medicine.” The conversation revolved around what to do […]

9:35 PM | Ed Yong writes up the latest on “The Mucus-Lover that...

Ed Yong writes up the latest on “The Mucus-Lover that Stops Mice from Getting Fat” in his NatGeo blog. He talks about a potential “keystone” species of microbe in the human gut and the role it could play in keeping us slim. Check out the PNAS paper in discussion.

7:58 PM | KSA: Two Health Care Workers Infected With nCoV

# 7275 Providing more evidence that the novel coronavirus can be transmitted – at least in a limited fashion – from one person to another, we’ve news this afternoon from the Saudi MOH that two health care workers have been infected and are now hospitalized. FluTrackers has been following this story for nearly two hours, in machine translated Arabic (see thread), but we now have an English language report from the Ministry of Health’s Website. […]

7:16 PM | Tiny Tourists Invade the Big City

Today we have a guest post from Mary Jane Epps, post-doc and chief beetle wrangler at Your Wild Life. Recently, Mary Jane has begun investigating the associations between beetles and humans, particularly within human dwellings, including the remains of homes in ancient Egypt. Back in March I accompanied our urban ecology team on a trip to New York City to study the effects of Superstorm Sandy on urban arthropods. Admittedly as a natural historian who feels more at home in the hills of […]

6:38 PM | WHO Novel Coronavirus Update – May 14th

# 7274 The World Health Organization has issued a fresh update with details on the 4 new Saudi NCoV cases I mentioned earlier today (see Saudi MOH Reports 4 More nCoV Cases). Perhaps the most expected aspect of this update is the onset date and outcome for patient #4, which is listed as just a week ago - May 7th – yet the patient is said to have recovered and been released from the hospital. Unfortunately, beyond their ages, sex and onset dates, […]

5:30 PM | A message for all you older guys/gals: Get on Twitter

When Terry posted this I called him immediately. I opened with, “I’m crushed.” He immediately said back, “what, that I didn’t include you in my twitter go to list” (ya big baby; he didn’t say that, but probably thought that). … Continue reading →

4:53 PM | 16 sick, one hospitalized; Salmonella outbreak in Fayetteville

The Cumberland County Health Department is alerting the public to a possible salmonella outbreak after 16 people showed symptoms of the bacterial infection. The department said Tuesday that two of the 16 people have confirmed cases of salmonella, and one … Continue reading →

4:35 PM | DVBID: 2012 Record Number Of West Nile Fatalities

# 7273 Last December in DVBID: Final West Nile Report For 2012, we saw a preliminary accounting of last year’s West Nile virus impact across the country. From all appearances, 2012 appeared on track to be a record year. Total cases 5,387 cases Neuroinvasive cases 2,734 (51%) Mild […]

2:55 PM | Dropping like flies; at least 20 sick, 5 hospitalized in Canberra food poisoning outbreak

Australia still has an egg problem. Or at least a Salmonella problem. According to the Canberra Times, five people have been hospitalized and more than 20 are sick as investigations continue into one of the largest spates of food poisoning … Continue reading →

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