Microbe Magazine

Bravo to Drs. Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall for their forum on reforming science (Microbe, June 2012, p. 254–255) and their more extensive exposition that recently appeared in Infection and Immunity (80:891–896 and 80:897–901, 2012]) on how the scientific enterpris... More...

As one of the increasing number of persons whose ability to control weight gain changed suddenly over a relatively short period of time and whose weight maintenance has become extremely resistant to exercise or changes in diet, I read Dr. Atkinson's feature Article with great attentiveness (... More...

Sometimes some of the most destructive toxins in nature—snake venom, for example—can be put to beneficial use. Now John Collier and colleagues of the Harvard Medical School have turned anthrax toxin against cancer. They accomplished this by changing the portion of the toxin that binds to receptor... More...

Transcription of the inv1 ⁺ gene in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe proceeds at a high level when the concentration of glucose in the growth medium is low, and shuts off when the glucose concentration is high. That regula... More...

The emergence and spread of apparently new strains of M. tuberculosis, including multiple and extensively drug-resistant strains, has raised considerable concern. The Beijing family of strains, thought to have enhanced pathogenicity, a predilection for drug resistan... More...

The needle-shaped type III secretion system is important in gram-negative bacteria for sensing eukaryotic cells and secreting proteins therein to help the bacterium infect them. Nikhil A. Thomas and colleagues of Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, show that “multicargo” chaperone... More...

Symbiotic nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria can only colonize their host plants if they are able to produce an acidic exopolysaccharide that facilitates formation of structures that help them invade the plant roots. But previous research on the bacterial species, Sinorhiz... More...

Anthrax is one of the great infectious diseases of antiquity. The fifth and sixth plagues in the Bible's Book of Exodus may have been anthrax outbreaks. Today, besides being a potential agent of biological warfare, anthrax is a public health problem in several countries where the main source... More...

National Registry of Certified Microbiologists (NRCM) Certification. Certifies microbiologists at every educational- and career-level in biological safety, food safety and quality, and pharmaceutical and medical device. NRCM certification is achieved by passing an online mu... More...

9–12 September 2012.

What examples can you name of endosymbiotic bacteria so tightly packed that they're nearly wall-to-wall within cells of their host? If you said legume root nodules, you can claim a prize. You would get bonus points if you also mentioned the bacteria-filled bacteriocytes of certain insects or... More...