Microbe Magazine

In the October issue (p. 437), Mark Rasmussen in his letter does a creditable job of clarifying the issue of the ruminant contribution to global methane emissions. But in doing so he inadvertently offers up an even larger falsehood than the one he is correcting: that “the carbon dioxide emitted b... More...

We read with great interest the article published in the October 2009 issue of Microbe (p. 440–441) about the “rediscovery” of well-established milestones in microbial ecology. In this article Dr. Gest referred to one of our publications: “Molecular bacterial community analysis of clean ro... More...

On 12 November, members of the ASM Public and Scientific Affairs Board (PSAB) and its committees on Biomedical Research, Biodefense, Laboratory Practices, and Public Health met with the Interagency Task Force on Select Agents at the ASM. The meeting was held to discuss the Biennial Review of the ... More...

Bioengineered nano- and microstructures manufactured by microorganisms are becoming increasingly attractive in various fields, notably the medical sciences, because they can be amazingly functional. For example, biopolyester beads comprising polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) can be produced as intracell... More...

Whales and dolphins are threatened by poorly understood infectious diseases, global climate disruption, and human encroachment. A big question is whether infectious agents can spread from land to marine mammals. Sarah A. LaMere and Daniel R. Salomon of the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Ca... More...

The potential that oleaginous algae could help feed the nation's demand for low-carbon footprint liquid fuels—in this case, biodiesel—makes them a hot topic. Until now, Chlamydomonas has been thought to be non-oleaginous, and thus unsuitable for biodiesel produ... More...

Textbook drawings of organelles are not all that representative of the real thing, according to Barry J. Bowman of the University of California, Santa Cruz, et al. This team tagged organellar proteins with red and green fluorescent proteins and examined them using confocal laser scanning microsco... More...

Cell division in most bacteria is driven by a ring-like complex of division proteins that assemble in a certain order at the prospective cell constriction site, called the septal ring (SR). But how constriction happens, including the function of the essential bitopic inner-membrane protein, FtsN,... More...

Parasitology is an important biomedical discipline devoted to the study of diverse organisms, ranging from protozoa to helminths to arthropods. All of these organisms have, however, one thing in common: they are composed of one or more eukaryotic cells. Garcia's book focuses on various appro... More...

ASM/CCID Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program. A two-year research experience under the mentorship of CDC scientists. Benefits include: an annual stipend (up to $42,188), health benefits (up to $3,000 annually) for a maximum of two years, relocation benefits (up to $500... More...

21–24 February 2010.

Biology is replete with definitions that have exceptions. A microbe (from the Greek roots mikros and bios for small life) is typically defined as a microscopic living organism invisible to the naked eye. It is clearly in the nature of living things to stretch our definitions, bend t... More...