Today’s Digest is short with a few articles from Scientific Reports and bioRxiv, spanning six areas, with two highlights added. Enjoy!

General microbiology

Preprint: Single Nanoparticle Tracking Reveals Efficient Long-Distance Undercurrent Transport above Swarming Bacteria – Jingjing Feng et al. – bioRxiv

Human gut microbiome

Preprint (correlation not causation): Parkinson’s disease-associated alterations of the gut microbiome can invoke disease-relevant metabolic changes – Federico Baldini et al. – bioRxiv

Plant, root and soil microbiome

Effect of Straw and Straw Biochar on the Community Structure and Diversity of Ammonia-oxidizing Bacteria and Archaea in Rice-wheat Rotation Ecosystems – Hanlin Zhang et al. – Scientific Reports

Water and extremophile microbiome

Diversity and extracellular enzyme activities of heterotrophic bacteria from sediments of the Central Indian Ocean Basin – Vijayshree S. Gawas et al. – Scientific Reports

Preprint: Energetic and Environmental Constraints on the Community Structure of Benthic Microbial Mats in Lake Fryxell, Antarctica – Megan Dillon et al. – bioRxiv

** Isolation and characterization of a thermophilic sulfur- and iron-reducing thaumarchaeote from a terrestrial acidic hot spring – Shingo Kato et al. – The ISME Journal

Phages and viruses

** Review: Phage Therapy in the Twenty-First Century: Facing the Decline of The Antibiotic Era; Is it Finally Time for The Age of the Phage? – Shayla Hesse and Sankar Adhya – Annual Review of Microbiology

Education

Preprint: Developing critical thinking in STEM education through inquiry-based writing in the laboratory classroom – Ah Jung Jeon et al. – bioRxiv

Preprint: Genetic research at the intersection of gender identity, sexual orientation, and mental health: community attitudes and recommendations for researchers – Taylor R Thomas et al. – bioRxiv