(This blog post was prepared by students enrolled in the Koala Poop Microbiome Class in the Fall of 2016 at UC Davis) This week we focused on antibiotic sensitivity on the individual bacteria that were identified last week. The day before class, the bacteria that we have been working with all quarter were recultured in …
(This blog post was prepared by students enrolled in the Koala Poop Microbiome Class in the Fall of 2016 at UC Davis) The last seven weeks of laboratory and computer work have been a mixture of successes and failures that eventually brought us to Week 8. The goal of this week was to build phylogenetic …
A new paper by Levin, A. et al was published open access in Scientific Reports entitled, “Joint effects of pregnancy, sociocultural, and environmental factors on early life gut microbiome structure and diversity.” The paper confirmed a lot of what we already now about what factors influence infant gut microbiomes (ex. breastfeeding, mode of delivery, pets, …
Appropriate song to play while reading this post: Farmhouse – Phish Just a quick post today about a paper that was published in Environmental Microbiology this week. Not open access, alas, but it looks like a good study. Exposure to soil, house dust, and decaying plants increases gut microbial diversity and decreases serum IgE levels …
There are few constants in this world. One exception, however, is the passing of day to night, which has gone on without fail since life first emerged on Earth. Early life quickly learned to anticipate changes associated with light and dark. This ability to tell time – to peer into the immediate future – was …
N. b. Should it appear presumptuous, I was publicly prompted to write this. I loathe to link to the original post by Locwin, but must for my response to make sense. A recent blog post (Sept 22, 2014; accessed Sept 24, 2014) by Ben Locwin addresses in the title and first line a study in Nature (Suez …
Microbiology is on a roll, it’s been an amazing couple decades of discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the roles that microbes play in human health. And this knowledge has pushed its way into popular culture. Every couple of days I see another popular media article about the influence of microbes on something else; …