Live blogging from the Michigan Microbial Meeting, microbiomes of Tibetan macaques and Pika, climate gases from SAR11, mycobiome of stored peanuts, and the deep biosphere.

Events

Ongoing now, with live written coverage: Michigan Meeting ““Unseen Partners: Manipulating Microbial Communities that Support Life on Earth.”

Bioinformatics for the Microbiome Symposium – Stanford Medicine – Friday May 27, 2016

Symposium: With a Little Help from My Friends: Microbial Partners in Integrative and Comparative Biology – Jan 4-8 2017, New Orleans

General microbiome

Microbiome Data Science: Understanding Our Microbial Planet – Nikos C. Kyrpides – Trends in Microbiology

Animal experiments

Antiviral effect of vitamin A on norovirus infection via modulation of the gut microbiome
Heetae Lee – Scientific Reports

A single gene of a commensal microbe affects host susceptibility to enteric infection – Mi Young Yoon – Nature Communications

Conference abstract: The Impact of Dietary Soy on Gut Microbiome – India R Gill – The FASEB Journal

Animal microbiome

Marked variation between winter and spring gut microbiota in free-ranging Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana) – Binghua Sun – Scientific Reports

Pika population density is associated with composition and diversity of gut microbiota – Huan Li – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: The bovine milk microbiota: insights and perspectives from -omics studies – Mol Biosyst

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil pH, total phosphorus, climate and distance are the major factors influencing microbial activity at a regional spatial scale – Haichuan Cao – Scientific Reports

Biochar alters the soil microbiome and soil function: results of next generation amplicon sequencing across Europe – Joseph R. Jenkins – GCB Bioenergy

Biochar as a novel niche for culturing microbial communities in composting – Daquan Sun – Waste Management

Review: Omic Relief for the Biotically Stressed: Metabolomics of Plant Biotic Interactions –
Hezi Tenenboim – Trends in Plant Science

Temperature sensitivity of soil microbial communities: an application of macromolecular rate theory to microbial respiration – Charlotte J. Alster – Biogeosciences

Water and extremophile microbiome

The abundant marine bacterium Pelagibacter simultaneously catabolizes dimethylsulfoniopropionate to the gases dimethyl sulfide and methanethiol – Jing Sun – Nature Microbiology

News coverage: 
Story behind the paper: Climate gases from SAR11 – Stephen Giovannoni – Nature Microbiology Community Blog
Tiny organisms have huge effect on world’s atmosphere – Science Daily

Bacterial and archaeal communities in the deep-sea sediments of inactive hydrothermal vents in the Southwest India Ridge – Likui Zhang – Scientific Reports

Depth-dependent and seasonal variability in archaeal community structure in the subarctic and subtropical western North Pacific – Ryo Kaneko – Journal of Oceanography

Exploring the interaction patterns among taxa and environments from marine metagenomic data – Ze-Gang Wei – Quantitative Biology

Review: Analysis of Low-Biomass Microbial Communities in the Deep Biosphere – Y. Morono – Advances in Applied Microbiology

Undergraduate thesis: Oases of Microbial Life in the Highest Elevation Fumaroles on Earth – Adam Solon – University of Colorado-Boulder

Food microbiology

Variation in fungal microbiome (mycobiome) and aflatoxins during simulated storage of in-shell peanuts and peanut kernels – Fuguo Xing – Scientific Reports

Microbiology of death

Involvement of microbial mats in early fossilization by decay delay and formation of impressions and replicas of vertebrates and invertebrates – Miguel Iniesto – Scientific Reports

Pollution and waste microbiology

Correlating microbial community profiles with geochemical conditions in a watershed heavily contaminated by an antimony tailing pond – Enzong Xiao – Environmental Pollution

pH modulates arsenic toxicity in Bacillus licheniformis DAS-2 – K. Tripti – Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

News coverage: Bacteria discovered to remove arsenic from soil – BK Mishral – Times of India

More microbiology

Immunization with a heat-killed preparation of the environmental bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae promotes stress resilience in mice – Stefan O. Reber – PNAS

News coverage: Immunization with bacteria promotes stress resilience, coping behaviors in mice, CU-Boulder study finds – University of Colorado Boulder

Natural mutations in a Staphylococcus aureus virulence regulator attenuate cytotoxicity but permit bacteremia and abscess formation – Sudip Das – PNAS

Range expansions transition from pulled to pushed waves as growth becomes more cooperative in an experimental microbial population – Saurabh R. Gandhi – PNAS

Microbes and art

Creating art with bacteria at New England Biolabs – Jennie Oemig – Wicked Local Beverly

Microbes in the news

Interviewing the Founder of the World #1 Microbiome Investment fund: Isabelle De Cremoux – Labiotech

How Soil Microbes Fight Climate Change – They’re our microscopic allies in making dirt a major resource for storing excess carbon – Esther Ngumbi – Scientific American

Everything You Need to Know About Obama’s New Microbiome Initiative – Tiny organisms. Big budgets. – Kastalia Medrano – Inverse

Welcome To FiveThirtyEight’s Gut Science Week – Maggie Koerth-Baker – Five Thirty Eight
What Your Poop Says About You – Christine Laskowski – Five Thirty Eight

FAQ on Microbiology of Built Environments from the American Academy of Microbiology – Jonathan Eisen – MicroBEnet

At A Texas Body Farm, Studying The Decay Of Donated Corpses – Kai Kupferschmidt – World Crunch

Children with and without multiple sclerosis have differences in gut bacteria – EurekAlert

Bathroom Reader: A Brief History of the Toilet – Zack Fediay – uBiome Blog

Linfield Wine Lecture Series: Managing Expectations: The Microbiome in Agriculture – Jack Gilbert – Linfield College

Science, publishing, and career

Point of View: Avoiding a lost generation of scientists – Justin Q Taylor – eLIFE

Twitter won’t count links and photos as part of your 140 characters – Dave Gershgorn – PopSci

Bruno Lemaitre on Science and Narcissism – Leonid Schneider – For Better Science