Today’s digest features showering with bacteria instead of soap, bacteria on the Mars rover, phages and bacteria reading through stop-codons, and a meteor shower tonight. What do meteor showers have to do with microbiome papers, you ask? Well, nothing. They are just cool to watch. So put on that fleece, get yourself to a dark place outside, and look North. Or stay inside and read today’s new digest.

General microbiome papers

• The Microbiota, the Immune System and the Allograft – M.-L. Alegre – American Journal of Transplantation
• Symbiosis, selection, and individuality – Austin Booth – Biology & Philosophy

Human oral microbiome papers

• Present status and future directions in endodontic microbiology – José F. Siqueira JR. and Isabela N. Rôças – Endodontic Topics

Human gut microbiome papers

• The HMITM module: a new tool to study the Host-Microbiota Interaction in the human gastrointestinal tract in vitro – Massimo Marzorati – BMC Microbiology
• Multiple Omics Uncovers Host–Gut Microbial Mutualism During Prebiotic Fructooligosaccharide Supplementation – Tamotsu Kato – DNA Research
• Breaking Bad – the Two Sides of Gut Microbiota in Portal Hypertension – Gautam Mehta and Rajeshwar P Mookerjee – Liver International
• Intestinal dysbiosis: Novel mechanisms by which gut microbes trigger and prevent disease – Mark A. Underwood – Preventive Medicine

Human genital microbiome papers

• Effect of Ureaplasma parvum co-incubation on Chlamydia trachomatis maturation in human epithelial HeLa cells treated with interferon-γ – Tomohiro Yamazaki – Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy

Pregnancy and birth papers

• Preconception Dietary Patterns in Human Pregnancies Are Associated with Preterm Delivery – Jessica Grieger – Journal of Nutrition
• Overselling the microbiome award – many – for stories about placental vs. oral microbiomes – Jonathan Eisen’s The Tree of Life blog

Metagenomics

• FIGG: Simulating populations of whole genome sequences for heterogeneous data analyses – Sarah Killcoyne – BMC Bioinformatics

Chromosomal organization

• Dynamically in the loop – Darren J. Burgess – Nature Reviews Genetics

Antibiotics and resistance papers

• Wastewater Treatment Plants Release Large Amounts of Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase–Producing Escherichia coli Into the Environment – Caroline Bréchet – Clinical Infectious Diseases

Pathogenicity papers

• Evolution of Pathogen Specialisation in a Host Metapopulation: Joint Effects of Host and Pathogen Dispersal – Julien Papaïx – PLOS Computational Biology

Phages and viruses

• The Phage Mating Theory, With Lessons for Yeast Geneticists – Frank Stahl – Genetics

Microbes in space

• Featured: Microbial stowaways to Mars identified – Bacteria found on the Curiosity rover reveal the types of microorganisms that spacecraft carry – Jyoti Madhusoodanan – Nature

More Microbes

• Featured: Stop codon reassignments in the wild – Natalia N. Ivanova – Science
• Also see: A glimpse into nature’s looking glass — to find the genetic code is reassigned – Science Daily

Bacteria in the news

• Featured: My No-Soap, No-Shampoo, Bacteria-Rich Hygiene Experiment – New York Times
• Minnesota Just Became the First State to Ban Anti-Bacterial Soap – Gizmodo
• From the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair: Convincing bacteria they’re alone – A teen researcher may have come across a way to keep some bacteria from turning deadly

Dr. Bik’s Picks

• Mice That Feel Less Pain Live Longer | Science/AAAS | News.
• The Science of Difference: Let’s Do It Right! | Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling. – Huffington Post
• Nature inspires drones of the future — ScienceDaily
• Featured: Heads-up! Stargazers on alert for rare, possibly epic meteor shower – CNN.com

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