December 18, 2016

Virome of the human respiratory tract, vendor effects on mouse gut, soils under beech and spruce, variations in Scottish soils, portable pathogen detection.

Events

Poster submission started: 3rd Annual Translational Microbiome Conference – April 11-13, 2017, Boston, USA

Pregnancy and early life

Microbiota network and mathematic microbe mutualism in colostrum and mature milk collected in two different geographic areas: Italy versus Burundi – Lorenzo Drago – The ISME Journal

Review: Pathogenesis of NEC: Impact of an altered intestinal microbiome – Josef Neu – Seminars in Perinatology

Human oral microbiome

Changes in the oral ecosystem induced by the use of 8% arginine toothpaste – British Dental Journal

Human respiratory microbiome

* Review: The Virome of the Human Respiratory Tract – Kristine M. Wylie – Clinics in Chest Medicine

Human vaginal microbiome

Comparison of Culture-dependent and Culture-Independent Molecular Methods for Characterisation of Vaginal Microflora – Shirali Pandya – Journal of Medical Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Distinct microbiome-neuroimmune signatures correlate with functional abdominal pain in children with autism spectrum disorder – Ruth Ann Luna – CMGH Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Alterations of the gut microbiome in Chinese patients with systemic lupus erythematosus
Zhixing He – Gut Pathogens

Altered Gut Microbiota in Patients With Chronic Pancreatitis is Associated With Gut Barrier Dysfunction and Metabolic Abnormalities – Rupjyoti Talukdar

Dietary Changes Impact the Gut Microbe Composition in Overweight and Obese Men with Prostate Cancer Undergoing Radical Prostatectomy – Andrew D. Frugé – Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

The human intestinal microbiota of constipated-predominant irritable bowel syndrome patients exhibits anti-inflammatory properties – Alain P. Gobert – Scientific Reports

The Interactions Between Gut Microbiota and Lynch Syndrome – Xiao-juan Lu – Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Review: Enterosalivary nitrate metabolism and the microbiome: intersection of microbial metabolism, nitric oxide and diet in cardiac and pulmonary vascular health – Carl D Koch – Free Radical Biology and Medicine

Review: Community metabolic modeling approaches to understanding the gut microbiome: bridging biochemistry and ecology – Helena Mendes-Soares – Free Radical Biology and Medicine

Review: Microbiota Small RNAs in Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Anca T. Filip – Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases

Review: Intestinal Microbiome, Akkermansia muciniphila, and Medicinal Nutrition Therapy – Jeffrey Bland – integrative Medicine

Review: Using the Human Gastrointestinal Microbiome to Personalize Nutrition Advice: Are Registered Dietitian Nutritionists Ready for the Opportunities and Challenges? – Ruth Harvie – Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

Review: Bacterial Biofilms in Colorectal Cancer Initiation and Progression – Shan Li – Trends in Molecular Medicine

Animal experiments

* Vendor Effects on Murine Gut Microbiota Influence Experimental Abdominal Sepsis – Tobias Hilbert – Journal of Surgical Research

The critical role of microbiota within cecal crypts on the regenerative capacity of the intestinal epithelium following surgical stress – Alexander Zaborin – American Journal of Physiology Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

Source of supplemental dietary copper, zinc, and manganese affects fecal microbial relative abundance in lactating dairy cows – M.J. Faulkner – Journal of Dairy Science

Deciphering upper respiratory tract microbiota complexity in healthy calves and calves that develop respiratory disease using shotgun metagenomics – Natália C. Gaeta – Journal of Dairy Science

Animal microbiology

Riptortus pedestris and Burkholderia symbiont: an ideal model system for insect–microbe symbiotic associations – Kazutaka Takeshita – Research in Microbiology

Bird: Helminth burden and ecological factors associated with alterations in wild host gastrointestinal microbiota – Lindsay K Newbold – The ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

* Fine Spatial Scale Variation of Soil Microbial Communities under European Beech and Norway Spruce – Heiko Nacke – Frontiers in Microbiology

Nutrient availability shapes the microbial community structure in sugarcane bagasse compost-derived consortia – Bruno L. Mello – Scientific Reports

The biogeography of soil archaeal communities on the eastern Tibetan Plateau – Yu Shi – Scientific Reports

Depth-resolved microbial community analyses in two contrasting soil cores contaminated by antimony and arsenic – Enzong Xiao – Environmental Pollution

Comprehensive Virus Detection Using Next Generation Sequencing in Grapevine Vascular Tissues of Plants Obtained from the Wine Regions of Bohemia and Moravia (Czech Republic) – Aleš Eichmeier – PLOS ONE

* Scottish soil: It is elemental: Soil nutrient stoichiometry drives bacterial diversity – Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo – Environmental Microbiology

Microbial soil community analyses for forensic science: Application to a blind test – Sandrine Demanèche – Forensic Science International

Review: Mycorrhiza: The Oldest Association Between Plant and Fungi – Jagnaseni Barman – Resonance

Book Chapter: Bioprospecting Soil Metagenomes for Antibiotics – Chiara Borsetto – Bioprospecting

Water and extremophile microbiome

The Distribution Pattern of Sediment Archaea Community of the Poyang Lake, the Largest Freshwater Lake in China – Yantian Ma – Archaea

Characterization of the first cultured representative of a Bacteroidetes clade specialized on the scavenging of cyanobacteria – Wajdi Ben Hania – Environmental Microbiology

Book chapter: Bioprospecting Archaea: Focus on Extreme Halophiles – André Antunes – Bioprospecting

Food microbiology

Analysis of the bacterial biodiversity of peaches under refrigerated storage after treatment by high hydrostatic pressure – Maria José Grande Burgos – Food and Bioproducts Processing

Bioreactor, biotechnology, and pollution microbiology

Correlating methane production to microbiota in anaerobic digesters fed synthetic wastewater – K. Venkiteshwaran – Water Research

Profiling bacterial communities associated with sediment-based aquaculture bioremediation systems under contrasting redox regimes – Georgina Robinson – Scientific Reports

Trace Elements Induce Predominance among Methanogenic Activity in Anaerobic Digestion – Babett Wintsche – Frontiers in Microbiology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Quantitative Comparison of Abundance Structures of Generalized Communities: From B-Cell Receptor Repertoires to Microbiomes – Mohammadkarim Saeedghalati – arXiv

A simple statistical test of taxonomic or functional homogeneity using replicated microbiome sequencing samples – Daniel H. Huson – Journal of Biotechnology

Inferring Aggregated Functional Traits from Metagenomic Data Using Constrained Non-negative Matrix Factorization: Application to Fiber Degradation in the Human Gut Microbiota – Sébastien Raguideau – PLOS Computational Biology

Now published: IMP: a pipeline for reproducible reference-independent integrated metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses – Shaman Narayanasamy – Genome Biology

Metabolomics

Evaluating metabolic response to light exposure in Lactobacillus species via targeted metabolic profiling – Mengyang Xu – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Review: Phytanic acid consumption and human health, risks, benefits and future trends: A review – P. Roca-Saavedra – Food Chemistry

Viruses and phages

Perspective: Viruses and the origin of microbiome selection and immunity – Steven D Quistad – The ISME Journal

Techniques

* Detection of ESKAPE bacterial pathogens at the point-of-care using isothermal DNA-based assays in a portable, de-gas microfluidic diagnostic assay platform
Lars D. Renner – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Press: Portable detection system can rapidly identify virulent, multi-drug resistant pathogens in remote areas – News-Medical

Synthetic spike-in standards for high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing – Dieter M. Tourlousse – Nucleic Acids Research

Microbes in the news

Gardening Etcetera: Life down under in northern Arizona – Cindy Murray – AZ Daily Sun

CSI: Chem trail: a new way for investigators to narrow down suspect pools using chemical traces found on cellphones – Kelly Kasulis – Boston Globe

China expresses alarm as chilli ‘conspiracy’ heats up Indonesians – South China Morning Post

Adapting and adopting microbiome data into clinical practice – Silvio Pitlik & Omry Koren- BioMed Central

Bacteria that boost insulin-producing cells could yield new diabetes approaches – Arlene Weintraub – Fierce Biotech

Microbes in the market

Research focused on the human microbiome market worth 658 million USD by 2023 – Whatech

AOBiome Launches Phase 2 Clinical Trial Using Novel Bacterial Platform for Treatment of Hypertension – PR Newswire

Live Stock Coverage: What’s Ahead for Seres Therapeutics Inc After Today’s Huge Increase? – Linda Rogers- Frisco Fastball

 

December 14, 2016

Gaia and her microbiome, a walk in the park, ancient teeth, fillies, bats, ticks, frogs, moss, and high-altitude potatoes.

General microbiome

Gaia and Her Microbiome – John F. Stolz – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Human oral microbiome

Tracing back ancient oral microbiomes and oral pathogens using dental pulps from ancient teeth – Nicolás Rascovan – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiome

Influences of pH and iron on the salivary microbiome in individuals with and without caries – Jianye Zhou – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

Further analysis reveals new gut microbiome markers of type 2 diabetes mellitus – Xiaokai Wang – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Animal experiments

Intense Exercise and Aerobic Conditioning Associated with Chromium or L-Carnitine Supplementation Modified the Fecal Microbiota of Fillies – Maria Luiza Mendes de Almeida – PLOS ONE

 

Animal microbiome

Mosquitoes: Diversity of Cultivable Midgut Microbiota at Different Stages of the Asian Tiger Mosquito, Aedes albopictus from Tezpur, India – Kamlesh K. Yadav – PLOS ONE

Bats: Microbiome of the sexual scent organ of Leptonycteris yerbabuenae – Osiris Gaona – PeerJ

Ticks: Endosymbiont interference and microbial diversity of the Pacific coast tick, Dermacentor occidentalis, in San Diego County, California – Nikos Gurfield – PeerJ

Frogs: Environmental fluctuations and host skin bacteria shift survival advantage between frogs and their fungal pathogen – Ana V Longo – ISME Journal

Plant, root, and soil microbiology

Discovery of polyesterases from moss-associated microorganisms – Christina Andrea Müller – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Combined use of network inference tools identifies ecologically meaningful bacterial associations in a paddy soil – Honggui Wang – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Rhizosphere microbiomes of potato cultivated in the High Andes show stable and dynamic core microbiomes with different responses to plant development – Stefan Pfeiffer – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Composting-Like Conditions Are More Efficient for Enrichment and Diversity of Organisms Containing Cellulase-Encoding Genes than Submerged Cultures – Senta Heiss-Blanquet – PLOS ONE

Effects of root exudates of woody species on the soil antierodibility in the rhizosphere in a karst region, China – Zhen hong Wang – PeerJ Preprint

Water and extremophile microbiome

Patchiness of Ciliate Communities Sampled at Varying Spatial Scales along the New England Shelf – Jean-David Grattepanche – PLOS ONE

Spatiotemporal variation of bacterial and archaeal communities in sediments of a drinking reservoir, Beijing, China – Yongjuan Chen – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Pristine but metal-rich Río Sucio (Dirty River) is dominated by Gallionella and other iron-sulfur oxidizing microbes – Alejandro Arce-Rodríguez – Extremophiles

Quantification of basal ice microbial cell delivery to the glacier margin – Mario Toubes-Rodrigo – Biogeosciences Discuss

Microbial Diversity of Source and Point-of-Use Water in Rural Haiti – A Pyrosequencing-Based Metagenomic Survey – Nabanita Mukherjee – PLOS ONE

Virus-host infection dynamics of marine single-celled eukaryotes resolved from metatranscriptomics – bioRxiv

Pollution

The Biologists’ Forum: Environmental microbial community analysis methods as applied to bioremediation – Hadassa Shira Guttman – BIOS

Food microbiology

Determination of Fungal Community Diversity in Fresh and Traditional Chinese Fermented Pepper by Pyrosequencing – Lingyan Zhao – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Metagenomics

Using Bacterial Genomes and Essential Genes for the Development of New Antibiotics – Francisco R. Fields – Biochemical Pharmacology

Antibiotic discovery is a walk in the park – Louis-Félix Nothias – PNAS

Metabolomics

Book: Microbial Metabolomics: Applications in Clinical, Environmental, and Industrial Microbiology – Editors: David J. Beale, Konstantinos A. Kouremenos, Enzo A. Palombo – Springer

Microbes in the news

Scientists trap bacteria with optical tractor beam.”The principle underlying this laser beam is similar to the concept to be found in the television series ‘Star Trek,'” said researcher Thomas Huser –  Brooks Hays – UPI

Researchers find bacterial protein that boosts insulin-producing cells in zebrafish – Science Daily

A $5 fix for a nasty parasite: Attachment of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts to environmental biofilms – EurekAlert

Increasing Product Recalls and Growing Consumer Concerns are Driving the Global Industrial Microbiology Market – Medgadget

 

 

December 12, 2016

Review on human milk microbiome, oral microbiome changes in seasonal athletes, gut microbiome and bipolar disorder.

Jobs

Assistant Professor In Quantitative Ecology or Evolution of Microbes – UCLA – MicroBEnet

Pregnancy and early life

Effect of probiotics in prevention of atopic dermatitis is dependent on the intrinsic microbiota at early infancy – Ekaterina Avershina – Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

* Review: Got bacteria? The astounding, yet not-so-surprising, microbiome of human milk – Michelle K McGuire – Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Human respiratory microbiome

Review: Viral–bacterial co-infections in the respiratory tract – Lauren O Bakaletz – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Human oral microbiome

* I was wondering if testing same group of athletes participating in 2 different sports could not be confounded with seasonal effects of maybe different study loads during the different year. But no access to the paper, so can not see details. Elevated salivary IgA, decreased anxiety, and an altered oral microbiota are associated with active participation on an undergraduate athletic team – Ashley L. Lamb – Physiology & Behavior

Human gut microbiome

* The gut microbiome composition associates with bipolar disorder and illness severity – Simon J. Evans – Journal of Psychiatric Research

Letter of the Editor: A Microbiome Assessment of Medical Marijuana – George Thompson III – Clinical Microbiology and Infection

Review: Archaea: essential inhabitants of the human digestive microbiota – Vanessa Demonfort Nkamga – Human Microbiome Journal

Animal experiments

Application of a dynamic gastrointestinal in vitro model combined with a rat model to predict the digestive fate of barley dietary fibre and evaluate potential impact on hindgut fermentation – Cristina Teixeira – Bioactive Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre

Animal microbiome

Characterization and identification of microbial communities in bovine necrotic vulvovaginitis – N.Y. Shpigel – The Veterinary Journal

Crab: Gut Microbiota and Metabolic Phenotype of Portunus Trituberculatus – Ting-Lan Zeng – Chinese Journal of Analytical Chemistry

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Arsenic-enrichment enhanced root exudates and altered rhizosphere microbial communities and activities in hyperaccumulator Pteris vittata – Suvendu Das – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Food microbiology

Impact of NaCl reduction on lactic acid bacteria during fermentation of Nocellara del Belice table olives – Paola Zinno – Food Microbiology

Impact of NaCl reduction on lactic acid bacteria during fermentation of Nocellara del Belice table olives – Paola Zinno – Food Microbiology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

Bioinformatics strategies for taxonomy independent binning and visualization of sequences in shotgun metagenomics – Karel Sedlar – Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

Microbes in the news

Predatory bacteria used to release bioplastics – Tim Sandle – Digital Journal

The Secret Soviet Virus That Helps Kill Bacteria. Antibiotic resistance is threatening to render antibiotics useless, but scientists may have found their answer in bacteria-eating viruses. – Trace Dominguez – Seeker

Bacteria found in close to two-thirds of NZ supermarket chicken – TV New Zealand

Science, publishing, and career

This would not be my headline choice: Trump says ‘nobody really knows’ if climate change is real – Juliet Eilperin – Washington Post

December 9, 2016

Human oral microbiome

Chapter Four – The Oral Microbiome in Health and Its Implication in Oral and Systemic Diseases – B. Sampaio-Maia – Advances in Applied Microbiology

Protocol: Methods to Study Antagonistic Activities Among Oral Bacteria – Fengxia Qi – Oral Biology

Protocol: The Oral Microbiota in Health and Disease: An Overview of Molecular Findings – José F. Siqueira Jr. – Oral Biology

Human skin microbiome

The protective effect of microbiota on S. aureus skin colonization depends on the integrity of the epithelial barrier – Marc Burian – Journal of Investigative Dermatology

Human respiratory microbiome (also Early Life)

Differences in the Nasopharyngeal Microbiome During Acute Respiratory Tract Infection With Human Rhinovirus and Respiratory Syncytial Virus in Infancy – Christian Rosas-Salazar – The Journal of Infectious Diseases

Reemergence of Lower-Airway Microbiota in Lung Transplant Patients with Cystic Fibrosis – Saad A. Syed – Annals of the American Thoracic Society

Editorial: Changes in the Cystic Fibrosis Airway Microbiome after Lung Transplant: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same – Shawn D. Aaron – Annals of the American Thoracic Society

Human gut microbiome

Blautia massiliensis sp. nov., isolated from a fresh human fecal sample and emended description of the genus Blautia – Guillaume A. Durand – Anaerobe

Review: Formation of propionate and butyrate by the human colonic microbiota – Petra Louis – Environmental Microbiology

Review: Exercise-induced stress behavior, gut-microbiota-brain axis and diet: a systematic review for athletes – Allison Clark – Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition

Animal experiments

Analysis of the intestinal microbial community and inferred functional capacities during the host response to Pneumocystis pneumonia – Derrick R. Samuelson – Experimental Lung Research

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

The prey’s scent – Volatile organic compound mediated interactions between soil bacteria and their protist predators – Kristin Schulz-Bohm – The ISME Journal

How miniature predators get their favorite soil bacteria. Sniffing out your dinner in the dark – Science Daily

Food microbiology

Dynamics of microbial community during the extremely long-term fermentation process of a traditional soy sauce – Yang Yang – Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

Water microbiology

Diversity and Abundance of the Denitrifying Microbiota in the Sediment of Eastern China Marginal Seas and the Impact of Environmental Factors – Minghong Gao – Microbial Ecology

Phages and viruses

Exploring the contribution of bacteriophages to antibiotic resistance – Itziar Lekunberri – Environmental Pollution

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

K-shuff: A Novel Algorithm for Characterizing Structural and Compositional Diversity in Gene Libraries – Kamlesh Jangid – PLOS ONE

More microbiology

17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox – Ana T. Duggan – Current Biology

A Mummy’s DNA May Help Solve The Mystery Of The Origins Of Smallpox – Nell Greenfieldboyce – NPR

Drug resistant pathogens and travel: No road map but a new initiative from Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease – Patricia Schlagenhauf – Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease

Microbes in the news

uBiome Joins Google, SpaceX, and Oculus as 2016 World Technology Award Finalist – PR Web

Paul Schreckenberger, microbiology lab director at Loyola, dies at 69 – Chicago Tribune

Antibacterial products may help bacteria beat antibiotics – Bob Holmes

Corticosteroid Success Linked to Differences in Bronchial Microbiome – Kenneth Bender – HCP live

Guest Post — The Emergent Microbiome: A Revolution for the Life Sciences — Part IX, The Microbiome and Immunotherapy II – David Puelo – JDSupra

Scientist Studies the Infant Resistome to Combat Superbugs – Infection Control Today

The Microbiome and Risk for HIV: Research in South Africa shows how the balance of bacteria in a woman’s vagina can raise or lower her risk for HIV – Columbia

December 7, 2016

Microbiota of migratory birds, blue fungus living in snow, migrating from SSU rRNAs to metagenomics.

Jobs

Awesome job at awesome institute: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Microbiology – California Academy of Sciences

Human gut microbiome

Special issue of Trends in Food Science & Technology; several papers have appeared here before but worth checking out: Unravelling the role of the gut microbiome in energy balance and brain development and function: the European project MyNewGut

Review: Homeostasis of the Gut Barrier and Potential Biomarkers – Jerry M Wells – American Journal of Physiology, Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

Review: Challenges in simulating the human gut for understanding the role of the microbiota in obesity – M. Aguirre – Beneficial Microbes

Animal models

Integrated Role of Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis Supplementation in Gut Microbiota, Immunity, and Metabolism of Infant Rhesus Monkeys – Xuan He – mSystems

Review: Dissecting the interplay between intestinal microbiota and host immunity in health and disease: Lessons learned from germfree and gnotobiotic animal models – Ulrike Fiebiger – European Journal of Microbiology and Immunology

Animal microbiome

* Changes in gut microbiota of migratory passerines during stopover after crossing an ecological barrier – William B. Lewis – The Auk

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

* Microbial Community Structure and Function of Soil following Ecosystem Conversion from Native Forests to Teak Plantation Forests – Vidya De Gannes – Frontiers in Microbiology

Drought tolerance of bioenergy grass Saccharum spontaneum L. enhanced by arbuscular mycorrhizae – P.P. Mirshad – Rhizosphere

Perspective: Microbiome selection could spur next-generation plant breeding strategies – Murali Gopal – Frontiers in Microbiology

Water and extremophile microbiome

Siderophore-based microbial adaptations to iron scarcity across the eastern Pacific Ocean – Rene M. Boiteau – PNAS

Phylogenetic diversity of microbial communities of the Posolsk Bank bottom sediments, Lake Baikal – S. M. Chernitsyna – Microbiology

Dampened copepod-mediated trophic cascades in a microzooplankton-dominated microbial food web: A mesocosm study – Bernadette Pree – Limnology and Oceanography

* Antarctomyces pellizariae sp. nov., a new, endemic, blue, snow resident psychrophilic ascomycete fungus from Antarctica – Graciéle C. A. de Menezes – Extremophiles

Temporal variability of bacterial communities in cryoconite on an Alpine glacier – Andrea Franzetti – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Intraclade Heterogeneity in Nitrogen Utilization by Marine Prokaryotes Revealed Using Stable Isotope Probing Coupled with Tag Sequencing (Tag-SIP) – Michael Morando – Frontiers in Microbiology

Pollution microbiology

Effect of metal concentration on the microbial community in acid mine drainage of a polysulfide ore deposit – V. V. Kadnikov – Microbiology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics (viruses too)

MEGARes: an antimicrobial resistance database for high throughput sequencing – Steven M. Lakin – Nucleic Acids Research

Improvements to PATRIC, the all-bacterial Bioinformatics Database and Analysis Resource Center – Alice R. Wattam – Nucleic Acids Research

Alignment-free d2* oligonucleotide frequency dissimilarity measure improves prediction of hosts from metagenomically-derived viral sequences – Nathan A. Ahlgren – Nucleic Acids Research

*  Crystal Ball: Migrating SSU rRNA gene surveys to the metagenomics era – Josh D. Neufeld – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Techniques

DNA extraction from benthic Cyanobacteria: comparative assessment and optimization – V. Gaget – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Microbial ecology

Microbial Community Coalescence for Microbiome Engineering – Matthias C. Rillig – Frontiers in Microbiology

More microbiology

How to Define Pathogenicity, Health, and Disease? – Mauno Vihinen – Human Mutation-Variation, Informatics, and Disease

Crystal Ball: Accessories make the microbe – Lisa Y. Stein – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Validating Regulatory Predictions from Diverse Bacteria with Mutant Fitness Data – Shiori Sagawa – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

With my former Stanford co-worker Fiona Strouts: New farmers’ market baker knows art, science of bread-making. Stanford fellow brings baking know-how to Portola Valley farmers’ market – Dave Boyce – Mountain View Voice

New Mechanism to Control Human Viral Infections Discovered – Sean Nealon – University of California Riverside

Uterine microbiota play a key role in implantation and pregnancy success in in vitro fertilization – EurekAlert (see digest October 12)

Understanding microbiome impact on pig health – National Hog Farmer

Syphilis is coming back – Juha Wahlstedt – Clinical Laboratory Blogspot

December 6, 2016

Pooping in space, lichen symbiosis, snow algae on volcanoes, and metagenome-guided peptide and protein identification.

uBiome Blog

* From Lift-Off to Splash-Down: The Scoop on Pooping in Space – Julie Taylor – uBiome

General microbiome

Review: Getting at the “what” and the “how” in symbiosis – Irene L. G. Newton – Environmental Microbiology Reports

The Evolutionary Value of Helpful Microbes: A Response to Shapira – Allen Rodrigo – Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Animal microbiome

DNA extraction protocols may influence biodiversity detected in the intestinal microbiome: a case study from wild Prussian carp, Carassius gibelio – Elena N. Kashinskaya – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

* Fungal–algal association patterns in lichen symbiosis linked to macroclimate – Garima Singh – New Phytologist

The missing link in grassland restoration: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculation increases plant diversity and accelerates succession – Liz Koziol – Journal of Applied Ecology

Dominant mycorrhizal association of trees alters carbon and nutrient cycling by selecting for microbial groups with distinct enzyme function – Tanya E. Cheeke – New Phytologists

Depth-dependent influence of different land-use systems on bacterial biogeography – Brent J. Seuradge – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Water and extremophile microbiome

* Primary productivity of snow algae communities on stratovolcanoes of the Pacific Northwest – T. L. Hamilton – Geobiology

Pollution microbiology

Microbial diversity in degraded and non-degraded petroleum samples and comparison across oil reservoirs at local and global scales – Isabel Natalia Sierra-Garcia – Extremophiles

Transformation of hexabromocyclododecane in contaminated soil in association with microbial diversity – Thao Thanh Le – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Proteomics

* A Graph-Centric Approach for Metagenome-Guided Peptide and Protein Identification in Metaproteomics -Haixu Tang – PLOS Computational Biology

Microbes in the news

Microbes: Our tiny, crucial allies – David R. Montgomery – The Conversation

Do C-sections alter a baby’s microbiome, hurting later health? – Sharon Begley – STAT news

Let there be light! Compact sterilizing pod uses UV light to kill bacteria – Dyllan Furness – Digital Trends

N.H.’s Oyster Bacteria Threat – Valley News

Doctor’s warning: a cat’s bacteria is worse than its bite. ER doctor says bites ‘almost like getting stabbed with a needle’ and infections can develop quickly — David Burke – CBC

Why Do Our Feet Smell Worse in the Winter? – Stephanie Pappas – Live Science

Science, publishing, and career

12 winners: 11 men, 1 woman. Tech Billionaires Award $25 Million in Breakthrough Prizes to Top Scientists – Robert Hackett -Fortune
$25 Million in Breakthrough Prizes Given in Science and Math -Dennis Overbye – New York Times

 

 

December 3, 2016, part 2

Recognition of extremophilic archaeal viruses by eukaryotic cells, special issue about the holobiont concept, sleep deprivation, respiratory viruses in infants. So many new papers that I had to spend another couple of hours on the digest today!

General microbiome and ecology

* Themed issue with papers about the holobiont and endosymbionts: Biological Individuality – Biology & Philosphophy

Review: Making a microbiome: the many determinants of host-associated microbial community composition – Karen L Adair – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Pregnancy and early life

* Interactions of Respiratory Viruses and the Nasal Microbiota during the First Year of Life in Healthy Infants – Insa Korten – mSphere

Does vaginal delivery mitigate or strengthen the intergenerational association of overweight and obesity? Findings from the boston birth cohort – N T Mueller – International Journal of Obesity

The oral cavities of healthy infants harbor high proportions of Streptococcus salivarius strains with phenotypic and genotypic resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics – Thaís H. Palma – Journal of Medical Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Bacterial community collapse: A meta-analysis of the sinonasal microbiota in chronic rhinosinusitis – Brett Wagner Mackenzie – Environmental Microbiology

Review: Viral-Bacterial interactions in the respiratory tract – Carla Bellinghausen – Journal of General Virology

Human skin microbiome

Dysbiotic Bacterial and Fungal Communities Not Restricted to Clinically Affected Skin Sites in Dandruff – Renan C. Soares – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Gene Function Analysis in the Ubiquitous Human Commensal and Pathogen Malassezia Genus – Giuseppe Ianiri – mBio

Review: Microbial biofilms and the human skin microbiome – Michael Brandwein – NPJ Biofilms and Microbiomes

Human gut microbiome

Clostridium difficile carriage in adult cystic fibrosis (CF); implications for patients with CF and the potential for transmission of nosocomial infection – D.G. Burke – Journal of Cystic Fibrosis

* Gut microbiota and glucometabolic alterations in response to recurrent partial sleep deprivation in normal-weight young individuals – Christian Benedict – Molecular Metabolism

Community-Metabolome Correlations of Gut Microbiota from Child-Turcotte-Pugh of A and B Patients – Xiao Wei – Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Role of gut microbiota in atherosclerosis – Annika Lindskog Jonsson- Nature Reviews Cardiology

Review: The role of diet on gut microbiota composition – S. Bibbò – European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences

Review: Gut barrier structure, mucosal immunity and intestinal microbiota in the pathogenesis and treatment of HIV infection – Camilla Tincati – AIDS Research and Therapy

Review: Microbiome and metabolic disease: revisiting the bacterial phylum Bacteroidetes – Elizabeth L. Johnson – Journal of Molecular Medicine

Review: Gut Homeostasis, Microbial Dysbiosis, and Opioids – Fuyuan Wang – Toxicologic Pathology

Animal and in vitro experiments

Sensitive and Simplified Detection of Antibiotic Influence on the Dynamic and Versatile Changes of Fecal Short-Chain Fatty Acids – Xiaoya Zhao – PLOS ONE

* Recognition of extremophilic archaeal viruses by eukaryotic cells: a promising nanoplatform from the third domain of life – Kristine Buch Uldahl – Scientific Reports

Unconjugated Bile Acids Influence Expression of Circadian Genes: A Potential Mechanism for Microbe-Host Crosstalk – Kalaimathi Govindarajan – PLOS ONE

Viral Metagenomic Analysis Displays the Co-Infection Situation in Healthy and PMWS Affected Pigs – Anne-Lie Blomström – PLOS ONE

Intraluminal Flagellin Differentially Contributes to Gut Dysbiosis and Systemic Inflammation following Burn Injury – Logan Grimes – PLOS ONE

Early-Life Sugar Consumption Affects the Rat Microbiome Independently of Obesity –
Emily E Noble – Journal of Nutrition

Obese Mice Fed a Diet Supplemented with Enzyme-Treated Wheat Bran Display Marked Shifts in the Liver Metabolome Concurrent with Altered Gut Bacteria – Dorothy A Kieffer – Journal of Nutrition

Dietary fat and gut microbiota interactions determine diet-induced obesity in mice – Raphaela Kübeck – Molecular Metabolism

Animal microbiome

Deconstructing the Bat Skin Microbiome: Influences of the Host and the Environment –
Christine V. Avena – Frontiers in Microbiology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

A temporal assessment of nematode community structure and diversity in the rhizosphere of cisgenic Phytophthora infestans-resistant potatoes – Vilma Ortiz – BMC Ecology

Diversity of Bacillus-like bacterial community in the sediments of the Bamenwan mangrove wetland in Hainan, China – Min Liu – Canadian Journal of Microbiology

Environmental and Geographical Factors Structure Soil Microbial Diversity in New Caledonian Ultramafic Substrates: A Metagenomic Approach – Véronique Gourmelon – PLOS ONE

Plants, microorganisms, and soil temperatures contribute to a decrease in methane fluxes on a drained Arctic floodplain – Min Jung Kwon – Global Change Biology

Comparative Investigation of Bacterial, Fungal, and Archaeal Community Structures in Soils in a Typical Oilfield in Jianghan, China – Zhi-Feng Zhou – Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology

Method: Assessing Bacterial and Fungal Diversity in the Plant Endosphere – Bernd Wemheuer – Methods in Molecular Biology: Metagenomics

Water microbiome

Method: Extraction of Total DNA and RNA from Marine Filter Samples and Generation of a cDNA as Universal Template for Marker Gene Studies – Dominik Schneider – Methods in Molecular Biology: Metagenomics

Method: Construction and Screening of Marine Metagenomic Large Insert Libraries – Nancy Weiland-Bräuer – Methods in Molecular Biology: Metagenomics

Food microbiology

Microbiological Quality and Variability of Natural Microbiota in Croatian Cheese Maturing in Lambskin Sacks – Jadranka Frece – Food Technology and Biotechnology

Bioinformatics and metagenomics

MeFiT: merging and filtering tool for illumina paired-end reads for 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing – Hardik I. Parikh – BMC Bioinformatics

Microbes in the news

Podcast (17 min) – Tracking the Daily Rhythms of the Microbiome – Science Friday

ASM delivers “Gift of Knowledge” to Ethiopia with Microbiology Mentoring Program – ASM

Science, publishing, and career
How Trump Could Wage a War on Scientific Expertise. The mechanics of stripping empiricism out of America’s regulatory systems – Ed Yong – The Atlantic

December 2, 2016

Role of microbiome in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease, benchmarking reveals false discoveries in microbiome studies, the microbes of Patagonia, and the new uBiome blog.

The  uBiome blog

* Handshakes: Sharing the Love, Sharing the Microbes – Julie Taylor – uBiome

Jobs

Assistant Professor in Microbial Systems Biology at U. Tennessee, Knoxville – MicroBE.net

Human vaginal microbiome

Informativeness of NGS Analysis for Vaginal Fluid Identification – Saverio Giampaoli – Journal of Forensic Sciences

Animal models

* Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease – Timothy R. Sampson – Cell

News: Axial Biotherapeutics Announces the Groundbreaking Discovery of a Biological Link Between the Gut Microbiome and Parkinson’s Disease Published in Cell – Businesswire
Gut check: Newest microbiome startup concentrates on autism, Parkinson’s disease – John Carroll – Endpoints News

Multiple paternity in a wild population of Armadillidium vulgare: influence of infection with Wolbachia? – V. Valette – Journal of Evolutionary Biology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Field-grown transgenic switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) with altered lignin does not affect soil chemistry, microbiology, and carbon storage potential – Jennifer M. DeBruyn – GCB Bioenergy

Vertical zonation of soil fungal community structure in a Korean pine forest on Changbai Mountain, China – World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology

* Book: Biology and Biotechnology of Patagonian Microorganisms – Editors: Nelda Lila Olivera, Diego Libkind, Edgardo Donati – Springer

Bioinformatics

* Large-scale benchmarking reveals false discoveries and count transformation sensitivity in 16S rRNA gene amplicon data analysis methods used in microbiome studies – Jonathan Thorsen – Microbiome

Microreact: visualizing and sharing data for genomic epidemiology and phylogeography – Silvia Argimón – Microbial Genomics

More microbiology

Quest for Ancestors of Eukaryal Cells Based on Phylogenetic Analyses of Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases – Ryutaro Furukawa – Journal of Molecular Evolution

The plastid genome of some eustigmatophyte algae harbours a bacteria-derived six-gene cluster for biosynthesis of a novel secondary metabolite – Tatiana Yurchenko – Open Biology

High levels of antibiotic tolerance and persistence are induced by the commercial anti-microbial triclosan – Corey S Westfall – bioRxiv

Microbes in the news

A citizen science project studying the microorganisms fauna found at the tip of our tongue – Euroscientist

Knowledge of skin microbiome provides insights into dermatological conditions – Skin microbes perform harmful and beneficial functions – Louise Gagnon – Dermatology Times

Digital Microbes Could Give More Insight into Gut Health – Nutrition Horizon

Healthy Gut, Healthy Brain? Microbes and Brain Health Under the Microscope During Mind, Mood & Microbes Conference – PR Newswire

Doctors warn about lung illness attributed to bacteria in showers and hot baths – Catherine Bosley – Cleveland19

Microbes on the market

Microbiome CNS upstart launches with $19.15M Series A – Ben Adams – Fierce Biotech

Boston startup hopes to use bacteria to treat autism – Robert Weisman

November 30, 2016

Microbiota-mitochondria crosstalk in Crohn’s Disease, is there a brain microbiome, Akkermansia proteins, Koala retroviruses, New York City park soil microbiomes, gift-giving insects, mud volcanos, 2.5 billion-year-old microbial fossils.

Events

The Gut Institute Microbiome Event in Berkeley, 10/11 December– Gut Institute

General microbiome

Microbial Ecology: Where are we now? – Lisa A. Boughner – Journal of Postdoctoral Research

Human respiratory microbiome

Common Lung Microbiome Identified among Mechanically Ventilated Surgical Patients – Ashley D. Smith – PLOS ONE

Human skin microbiome

Towards a bacterial treatment for armpit malodour – Chris Callewaert – Experimental Dermatology

Review: Establishing Tolerance to Commensal Skin Bacteria: Timing Is Everything – Tiffany C. Scharschmidt – Dermatologic Clinics

Human microbes in (nearly) sterile sites

* Lots of extraction controls in this study, but they were not sequenced, and hard to accept there are thriving bacterial communities in our brain: Brain microbiota disruption within inflammatory demyelinating lesions in multiple sclerosis – W. G. Branton – Scientific Reports

Human gut microbiome

* Altered intestinal microbiota–host mitochondria crosstalk in new onset Crohn’s disease – Walid Mottawea – Nature Communications

Changes in Intestinal Microbiota Following Combination Therapy with Fecal Microbial Transplantation and Antibiotics for Ulcerative Colitis – Dai Ishikawa – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Urinary metabolomics of young Italian autistic children supports abnormal tryptophan and purine metabolism – Federica Gevi – Molecular Autism

Review: Interaction of gut microbiota with bile acid metabolism and its influence on disease states – Christopher Staley – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Animal and in vitro models

* A purified membrane protein from Akkermansia muciniphila or the pasteurized bacterium improves metabolism in obese and diabetic mice – Hubert Plovier – Nature Medicine

Stable Host Gene Expression in the Gut of Adult Drosophila melanogaster with Different Bacterial Mono-Associations – Carolyn Elya – PLOS ONE

Checks and balances – microbiota shifts in immunosuppressed mice – W. Florian Fricke – Transplantation

Dual-specificity phosphatase 6 deficiency regulates gut microbiome and transcriptome response against diet-induced obesity in mice – Jhen-Wei Ruan – Nature Microbiology

Short Chain Fatty Acids Prevent High-fat-diet-induced Obesity in Mice by Regulating G Protein-coupled Receptors and Gut Microbiota – Yuanyuan Lu – Scientific Reports

Effect of antibiotic pre-treatment and pathogen challenge on the intestinal microbiota in mice – Tadasu Iizumi – Gut Pathogens

Fecal microbiota manipulation prevents dysbiosis and alcohol-induced liver injury in mice – Gladys Ferrere – Journal of Hematology

Impact of red meat consumption on the metabolome of rats – Louise M. A. Jakobsen – Molecular Nutrition & Food Research

11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-1 deficiency alters the gut microbiome response to western diet – Jethro S Johnson – Journal of Endocrinology

Microbiota induces expression of tumor necrosis factor in postnatal mouse skin – D. V. Yuzhakova – Biochemistry (Moscow)

Animal microbiome

* Phylogenetic diversity of Koala Retrovirus within a Wild Koala Population – K.J. Chappell – Journal of Virology

* Partitioning the effects of mating and nuptial feeding on the microbiome in gift-giving insects – Chad C. Smith – Environmental Microbiology Reports

The stable microbiome of inter and sub-tidal anemone species under increasing pCO2 – Erinn M. Muller – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

* Urban park soil microbiomes are a rich reservoir of natural product biosynthetic diversity – Zachary Charlop-Powers – PNAS

News: Metagenomics Hints at Natural Product Potential of Microbes in New York City Parks – Genome Web
Study: New York City Dirt Rich in Bacteria Related to Medical Treatments – Robert Lee Hotz

* Sulfur-oxidizing bacteria prior to the Great Oxidation Event from the 2.52 Ga Gamohaan Formation of South Africa -Andrew D. Czaja – Geology

Geologist uncovers 2.5 billion-year-old fossils of bacteria that predate the formation of oxygen – Phys.org

Direct evidence for microbial-derived soil organic matter formation and its ecophysiological controls – Cynthia M. Kallenbach – Nature Communications

Evidence for Ecological Flexibility in the Cosmopolitan Genus Curtobacterium – Alexander B. Chase – Frontiers in Microbiology

Molecular phylogeny, diversity, community structure, and plant growth promoting properties of fungal endophytes associated with the corms of saffron plant: An insight into the microbiome of Crocus sativus Linn. – Zahoor Ahmed Wani – Fungal Biology

Host and tissue variation overshadow the response of boreal moss-associated fungal communities to increased nitrogen load – Marie L. Davey – Molecular Ecology

Responses of Methanogenic and Methanotrophic Communities to Elevated Atmospheric CO2 and Temperature in a Paddy Field – Yuan Liu – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbial community structure of surface sediments from a tropical estuarine environment using next generation sequencing – Lidita Khandeparker – Ecological Indicators

Fungal endophytic communities associated to the phyllosphere of grapevine cultivars under different types of management – Carla Marisa Reis Varanda – Fungal Biology

Shifting patterns of microbial N-metabolism across seasons in upland Alaskan tundra soils – Shawna McMahon – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Disruption of plant-soil-microbial relationships influences plant growth – Daniel P. Keymer – Journal of Ecology

Review: Rhizobial diversity and function in rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) and honeybush (Cyclopia spp.) plants: A review – C. Brink – South African Journal of Botany

Water and extremophile microbiome

Landscape-scale spatial abundance distributions discriminate core from random components of boreal lake bacterioplankton – Juan Pablo Niño-García – Ecology Letters

Diversity and Distribution of Phenol Oxidase Producing Fungi from Soda Lake and Description of Curvularia lonarensis sp. nov. – Rahul Sharma – Frontiers in Microbiology

Hydrocarbon degraders establish at the costs of microbial richness, abundance and keystone taxa after crude oil contamination in permafrost environments – Sizhong Yang – Scientific Reports

* Comparative study of Dushanzi and Baiyanggou mud volcano microbial communities in Junggar Basin in Xinjiang, China – Zhiyong Huang – International Research Journal of Public and Environmental Health

Habitat generalists and specialists in microbial communities across a terrestrial-freshwater gradient – C. Monard – Scientific Reports

Review: Sources of Antibiotics: Hot springs – Girish B. Mahajan – Biochemical Pharmacology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Variability in Metagenomic Count Data and Its Influence on the Identification of Differentially Abundant Genes – Jonsson Viktor – Journal of Computational Biology

Alignment-free Transcriptomic and Metatranscriptomic Comparison Using Sequencing Signatures with Variable Length Markov Chains – Weinan Liao – Scientific Reports

Techniques

The Oxford Nanopore MinION: delivery of nanopore sequencing to the genomics community – Miten Jain – Genome Biology

Microbes in the news

The “Internet Of Food,” DNA Testing, And The Quest For The Perfect Diet – Fastcompany

Geologist uncovers 2.5 billion-year-old fossils of bacteria that predate the formation of oxygen – Phys.org

Major finding identifies nitrogen as key driver for gut health – Knowridge

Each animal species hosts a unique microbial community and benefits from it – David Salisbury – Vanderbilt University News

In Brazil, prestigious scientific journal “Nature Communications” focuses on Adventist lifestyle – Felipe Lemos – Adventist

Genes, early environment sculpt the gut microbiome – Science Daily

OpenBiome Now Stores Your Stool In Case of C. difficile Infection – Gastroenterology and Endoscopy News

November 28, 2016

Chronic rhinosinusitis, quantification of vaginal lactobacilli, intestinal nitrogen constraints, the eelgrass microbiome, microbes under lake ice.

Human respiratory microbiome

* Classification of Chronic Rhinosinusitis—Working Toward Personalized Diagnosis – Adam S. DeConde – Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America
Bacterial Pathogens and the Microbiome – Thad W. Vickery – Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America

 
Human skin microbiome

Comment on “Skin Microbiome Surveys Are Strongly Influenced by Experimental Design” – Patrick L.J.M. Zeeuwen – Journal of Investigative Dermatology

Establishing Tolerance to Commensal Skin Bacteria: Timing Is Everything – Tiffany C. Scharschmidt – Dermatologic Clinics

Human vaginal microbiome

* A novel real-time PCR assay for highly specific detection and quantification of vaginal lactobacilli – Vladimir V. Demkin – Molecular and Cellular Probes

Human gut microbiome

Review: Interaction of gut microbiota with bile acid metabolism and its influence on disease states – Christopher Staley – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Review: Microbes Dress for Success: Tolerance or Resistance? – Janelle S. Ayres – Trends in Microbiology

* Review: Diet-Microbiome Interactions in Health Are Controlled by Intestinal Nitrogen Source Constraints – Andrew J. Holmes – Cell Metabolism

Animal models

The gut microbiota in young and middle-aged rats showed different responses to chicken protein in their diet – Yingying Zhu – BMC Microbiology

The Drosophila transcriptional network is structured by microbiota – Adam J. Dobson – BMC Genomics

Review: Norovirus Regulation by Host and Microbe – Megan T. Baldridge – Trends in Molecular Medicine

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

* Global-scale structure of the eelgrass microbiome – Ashkaan K Fahimipour – bioRxiv

Rapid bacteria identification from environmental mining samples using MALDI-TOF MS analysis – Ingrid Regina Avanzi – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Comparative analysis of bacterial diversity in the rhizosphere of tomato by culture-dependent and -independent approaches – Shin Ae Lee – Journal of Microbiology

Soil pH and electrical conductivity are key edaphic factors shaping bacterial communities of greenhouse soils in Korea – Jeong Myeong Kim – Journal of Microbiology

Chemical, organic and bio-fertilizer management practices effect on soil physicochemical property and antagonistic bacteria abundance of a cotton field: Implications for soil biological quality – Rui Li – Soil and Tillage Research

Water and extremophile microbiome

* Ecology under lake ice – Stephanie E. Hampton – Ecology Letters

Food microbiology

Dynamics of bacterial communities during manufacture and ripening of traditional Caciocavallo of Castelfranco cheese in relation to cows’ feeding – Marina Giello – Food Microbiology

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

MetaMIS: a metagenomic microbial interaction simulator based on microbial community profiles – Grace Tzun-Wen Shaw – BMC Bioinformatics

Metabolomics

Metabolomic profile of children with recurrent respiratory infections – Sara Bozzetto – Pharmacological Research

Microbes in the news

Infant Microbiome: Vaginal Delivery Versus C-Section – Jef Akst – The Scientist

I did not get the first part of this title. Michael Pollan didn’t invent microbiome research, he’s a demagogue: Set of 15 bacterial species protects mice from Salmonella as effectively as natural gut microbiota – Doug Powell – Barfblog

Surprise: Probiotics Don’t Do Much At All For Our Gastrointestinal Health – Drew Smith – Forbes

#BacteriaArePlural: Ravenous Bacteria Eats Poop and Produces Power – Rhett Jones – Gizmodo

Gut bacteria study could lead to new Crohn’s treatments, researchers say – CBC News

Hospital Microbiology Testing Market Positive Long-Term Growth Outlook 2016 – 2024 – Digital Journal

Bik’s Non-Microbiology Picks

Researchers discover most winter boots are too slippery to walk safely on icy surfaces – EurekAlert