April 1, 2015

April 1st science

Want to live chemical free? Try Doctor Bacfarc’s Dark Matter Diet™! – Galileo’s Pendulum

Zoology: Here be dragons – Andrew J Hamilton – Nature

CERN researchers confirm existence of the Force, with scientist Ben Kenobi – Cian O’Luanaigh – CERN

Against April Fools’ in Science Journalism – Lee Billings – Scientific American

Human oral microbiome

Comparison of Oral Microbial Profiles between Children with Severe Early Childhood Caries and Caries-Free Children Using the Human Oral Microbe Identification Microarray – Chen Ma – PLOS ONE

Like pulling teeth: Microbiota at teeth and implants in partially edentulous patients. A 10-year retrospective study – Sigrun Eick – Clinical Oral Implants Research

Human respiratory microbiome

The daily dynamics of cystic fibrosis airway microbiota during clinical stability and at exacerbation – Lisa A Carmody – Microbiome

Human gut microbiome

Fate, activity, and impact of ingested bacteria within the human gut microbiota – Muriel Derrien, Johan E.T. van Hylckama Vlieg – Trends in Microbiology

Gut Microbiota and Tacrolimus Dosing in Kidney Transplantation – John R. Lee – PLOS ONE

Gut microbiota: Optimal sampling of the intestinal microbiota for research – R. Balfour Sartor – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Review: Towards a more comprehensive concept for prebiotics – Laure B. Bindels – Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

Antibiotic Exposure in Infancy and Risk of Being Overweight in the First 24 Months of Life – Antti Saari – Pediatrics

Animal microbiome

Bats: External Microbiota of Western United States Bats: Does It Matter Where You Are From? – Ara Kooser – BioRxiv

Aphids: Infection Dynamic of Symbiotic Bacteria in the Pea Aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum Gut and Host Immune Response at the Early Steps in the Infection Process – François Renoz – PLOS ONE

Plant microbiome

Presentation: Mining the Agave Microbiome for Adaptations to Arid Environments – Devin Coleman-Derr – JGI

Soil and plant root microbiome

Baseline Survey of Root-Associated Microbes of Taxus chinensis (Pilger) Rehd – Qian Zhang – PLOS ONE

Extremophile microbiome

Functional Characterization of Bacteria Isolated from Ancient Arctic Soil Exposes Diverse Resistance Mechanisms to Modern Antibiotics – Gabriel G. Perron – PLOS ONE

Built environment microbiome

Influence of a Non-Hospital Medical Care Facility on Antimicrobial Resistance in Wastewater – Mathias Bäumlisberger – PLOS ONE

Metagenomics

Staph in staff: Capturing the cloud of diversity reveals complexity and heterogeneity of MRSA carriage, infection and transmission – Gavin K. Paterson

Metabolomics

Marine sequestration of carbon in bacterial metabolites – Oliver J. Lechtenfeld – Nature Communications

Ecology

Not microbial, but of interest: Inferring species interactions in ecological communities: a comparison of methods at different levels of complexity – Francesco Carrara – Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Techniques

Insight into biases and sequencing errors for amplicon sequencing with the Illumina MiSeq platform – Melanie Schirmer – Nucleic Acids Research

Microbes in the news

Apparently, this is not a joke: #Kryptonia: Hiding in Plain Sight: Researchers using metagenomics and single-cell sequencing identify a potential new bacterial phylum – Kim Smuga-Otto – The Scientist

Can ‘ghosts’ cause bad air? Poor indoor air quality and ‘sightings’ – Science Daily

Cool Jobs: The Cave Microbiologist – Scientiflix

Bacteria are plural, Smithsonian. Found: The Bacteria That’s Making You Stink – Erin Blakemore – Smithsonian

Duke-UNC Collaboration Creating ‘Gut-on-a-Chip’ – Marla Vacek Broadfoot – Duke Translational Medicine Institute

Researchers Discover New Source Of Airborne Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria – Erin Schumaker – Huffington Post

Research proves that intestinal bacteria can be used to classify the effects of different diseases – Medical Xpress

VanillinAre Microbes the Taste-Makers of the Future? – Jeffrey Marlow – Wired.com

Your Microbiome “Tree” – Spectrum MIT
Microbiome Research: A New Frontier in Medicine – Elizabeth Dougherty – Spectrum MIT

Manipulative Microbiomes – Gut bacteria control tumor growth via the mammalian immune system – Jenny Rood – The Scientist

This might be April 1st joke, but realistic results: Scientists reveal the thousands of bacteria colonies growing on dirty coins and notes – Sarah Griffiths – Daily Mail

New ‘Intraterrestrial’ Virus Found in Ocean Depths – Patrick J Kiger – Discovery

Best date ever: Date syrup shows promise for fighting bacterial infections – Science Daily

Science, publishing, career

How Articles Get Noticed and Advance the Scientific Conversation – Victoria Costello – PLOS Blogs

A Biotic Game Design Project for Integrated Life Science and Engineering Education –
Nate J. Cira – PLOS Biology

Bik’s Picks

Getting away with murder: Global analysis of fungal morphology exposes mechanisms of host cell escape – Teresa R. O’Meara – Nature Communications

Monarch Larva Monitoring Project Helps Citizen Scientists Build Connections to Nature – Eva Lewandowski – PLOS Blogs

Rats see the pain in other rats’ faces – Virginia Morell – Science Mag

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March 31, 2015

For today’s digest, I screened over 500 papers, and thousands of Tweets for you. Here is my selection:

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

PhD thesis [PDF]: Dynamics of co-existing Escherichia coli lineages in situ of the infant gut – Heidi Kira Gumpert – Technical University of Denmark

Associations between Gut Microbial Colonization in Early Life and Respiratory Outcomes in Cystic Fibrosis – Anne G Hoen – The Journal of Pediatrics

ReviewProbiotics for Preterm Infants: A Premature or Overdue Necrotizing Enterocolitis Prevention Strategy? – Sharon Anderson – Neonatal Network

Review: Preterm infant nutrition, gut bacteria, and necrotizing enterocolitis – Josef Neu –  Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care

Human oral microbiome

Periodontal Therapy Effects on Nitrite Related to Oral Bacteria: A 6-Month Randomized Clinical Trial – Sheila C Cortelli – Journal of Periodontology

Perspective: Mouthguards: Does the indigenous microbiome play a role in maintaining oral health? – Purnima S. Kumar and Matthew R. Mason – Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Nasal Inoculation of the Commensal Neisseria lactamica Inhibits Carriage of Neisseria meningitidis by Young Adults: A Controlled Human Infection Study – Alice M. Deasy – Clinical Infectious Diseases

Human skin microbiome

Molecular cartography of the human skin surface in 3D – Amina Bouslimani – PNAS USA

Human gut microbiome

Dynamic changes in short- and long-term bacterial composition following fecal microbiota transplantation for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection – Alexa Weingarden – Microbiome Journal

Insight into alteration of gut microbiota in Clostridium difficile infection and asymptomatic C. difficile colonization – Zhang Lihua – Anaerobe

Review: The microbiota in inflammatory bowel disease – Donal Sheehan – Journal of Gastroenterology

Review: Promoting Health and Longevity through Diet: From Model Organisms to Humans – Luigi Fontana, Linda Partridge – Cell

Review: TLR4 at the crossroads of nutrients, gut microbiota and metabolic inflammation
Licio A. Velloso – Endocrine Reviews

Review: Cultivating Healthy Growth and Nutrition through the Gut Microbiota – Sathish Subramanian – Cell

Review: The human gut microbiome, a taxonomic conundrum – Senthil Alias Sankar – Systematic and Applied Microbiology

Review: The Role of Infectious Mediators and Gut Microbiome in the Pathogenesis of Celiac Disease – Mohammad Rostami-Nejad – Archives of Iranian Medicine

Review: Exercise and the microbiota – Orla O’Sullivan – Gut Microbes

Animal models of microbiome research

Abnormal Pregnancy Outcomes in Mice Using an Induced Periodontitis Model and the Haematogenous Migration of Fusobacterium nucleatum Sub-Species to the Murine Placenta – Sara Stockham – PLOS ONE

Lactobacillus rhamnosus lowers zebrafish lipid content by changing gut microbiota and host transcription of genes involved in lipid metabolism – Silvia Falcinelli – Scientific Reports

Interactive effects of oligofructose and obesity predisposition on gut hormones and microbiota in diet-induced obese rats – Nina L. Cluny – Obesity

Animal microbiome

Editorial to Baboon microbiome paper: Metagenomics: Social behavior and the microbiome – Jack A Gilbert – eLIFE

More baboons: Development, diet, and dynamism: longitudinal and cross-sectional predictors of gut microbial communities in wild baboons – Tiantian Ren – Environmental Microbiology

Spider monkey: Effect of preservation method on spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) fecal microbiota over 8 weeks – Vanessa L. Hale – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Cats: Molecular identification of black-pigmented bacteria from subgingival samples of cats suffering from periodontal disease – L. Pérez-Salcedo – Journal of Small Animal Practice

Desert wool rat: Validating the use of trap-collected feces for studying the gut microbiota of a small mammal (Neotoma lepida) – Journal of Mammalogy

Tortoise: Kinship, inbreeding, and fine-scale spatial structure influence gut microbiota in a hindgut-fermenting tortoise – Michael L. Yuan – Molecular Ecology

Trout: Bacterial community structure in the intestinal ecosystem of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) as revealed by pyrosequencing-based analysis of 16S rRNA genes
Miray Etyemez, José Luis Balcázar – Research in Veterinary Science

Fruit fly: Pyrosequencing reveals a shift in symbiotic bacteria populations across life stages of Bactrocera dorsalis – Awawing A. Andongma – Scientific Reports

Aphids: Bacterial Communities Associated with Host-Adapted Populations of Pea Aphids Revealed by Deep Sequencing of 16S Ribosomal DNA – Jean-Pierre Gauthier – PLOS ONE

Plant microbiome

A metagenome for lacustrine Cladophora (Cladophorales) reveals remarkable diversity of eukaryotic epibionts and genes relevant to materials cycling – Linda E. Graham – Journal of Phycology

Soil and plant root microbiome

A novel pathway producing ​dimethylsulphide in bacteria is widespread in soil environments – O. Carrión – Nature Communications

Metabolic characteristics of microbial communities of Aeolian sandy soils induced by saline water drip irrigation in shelter forests – Z. Jin – European Journal of Soil Science

Field experimental evidence that stochastic processes predominate in the initial assembly of bacterial communities – Yi-Qi Hao – Environmental Microbiology

Effects of monoculture and mixed culture of grass and legume forage species on soil microbial community structure under different levels of nitrogen fertilization – Jie Zhao – European Journal of Soil Biology

Soil microbial community variation correlates most strongly with plant species identity, followed by soil chemistry, spatial location and plant genus – Jean H. Burns – AoB Plants

Long-term oil contamination causes similar changes in microbial communities of two distinct soils – Jingqiu Liao – Frontiers in Environmental Science

Soil Microbial Community Structure and Target Organisms under Different Fumigation Treatments – Sadikshya R. Dangi – Applied and Environmental Soil Science

Water microbiome

Carbonate fabrics in the modern microbialites of Pavilion Lake: two suites of microfabrics that reflect variation in microbial community morphology, growth habit, and lithification – C. Harwood Theisen – Geobiology

The Unique Chemistry of Eastern Mediterranean Water Masses Selects for Distinct Microbial Communities by Depth – Stephen M. Techtmann – PLOS ONE

Planktonic eukaryote molecular diversity: discrimination of minerotrophic and ombrotrophic peatland pools in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) – Enrique Lara – J. Plankton Research

Extremophile microbiome

Ice cover extent drives phytoplankton and bacterial community structure in a large north-temperate lake: implications for a warming climate – B. F. N. Beall – Environmental Microbiology

Marine microbes rapidly adapt to consume ethane, propane, and butane within the dissolved hydrocarbon plume of a natural seep – Stephanie D. Mendes – Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Built environment microbiome

Are microbial communities in green roof substrates comparable to those in post-industrial sites?—a preliminary study – Chloe J. Molineux – Urban Ecosystems

Food microbiology

Some journals just have great titles: Microbial community changes in Makgeolli during brewing – Changhoon Chai – Journal of the Institute of Brewing

Review: Fermented Foods as Experimentally Tractable Microbial Ecosystems – Benjamin E. Wolfe, Rachel J. Dutton – Cell

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Assessing the limits of restraint-based 3D modeling of genomes and genomic domains
Marie Trussart – Nucleic Acids Research

CRISPR Detection from Short Reads Using Partial Overlap Graphs – Ilan Ben-Bassat, Benny Chor – Research in Computational Molecular Biology

CLARK: fast and accurate classification of metagenomic and genomic sequences using
discriminative k-mers – Rachid Ounit – BMC Genomics

FlowClus: efficiently filtering and denoising pyrosequenced amplicons – John M Gaspar and W Kelley Thomas – BMC Bioinformatics

Review: 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing data mining of microbial diversity and interactions – Feng Ju, Dr. Tong Zhang – Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Book Chapter: Single-Cell Sequencing of Microorganisms – Ying Chen – Single Cell Sequencing and Systems Immunology

Metabolomics

Review: Rumen Nutrition Symposium How to use data on the rumen microbiome to improve our understanding of ruminant nutrition – J. L. Firkins and Z. Yu – Journal of Animal Science

Microbes in the news

Modeling microbial metabolism on indoor surfaces – Jack Gilbert – MicroBEnet

Body Maps Expose the Chemical Residue That Coats Our Skin – Marcus Woo – Wired.com
Crazy maps reveal colonies of bacteria and chemicals all over the human body – Kevin Loria – Business Insider
3D Human Skin Maps Aid Study of Relationships Between Molecules, Microbes and Environment – Heather Buschman – UC San Diego

Advancing the understanding of the dental microbiome – Maria Perno Goldie – Dentistry IQ

Who Let the Microbes Out: A Paw Print of Doggy Skin Bacteria – Daniella Lowenberg – PLOS blogs

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not match for medieval potion – Alexandra Ossola – Popular Science

Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria From Texan Cattle Yards Are Now Airborne, Study Finds
Kevin McSpadden – Time

Growing a Baby Microbiome – Kevin Bonham – Scientific American

Poop Transplants Can Treat Severe Infection In Patients – FPJ Bureau – The Free Press Journal

Poo transplants could save thousands – Geoff Egan – Range News
Healthy Microbiome Changes Last After Fecal Transplant in New Research – Elizabeth Gough-Gordon – MPR

With sample collection videos: GoViral – collecting nasal and saliva samples from sick people – Boston Children’s Hospital

Northwestern leads research on effects of long-term stay in space – Peter Kotecki – The Daily Northwestern
Conference paper: Research from the NASA Twins Study and Omics in Support of Mars Missions – NASA Technical Reports

Podcast (1min30): Donate Your Health Data To Medical Science – Cynthia Graber – Scientific American – American Gut, GoViral

You Act What You Eat: How Gut Microbes Modify Our Behavior – Monica Thunder – ResetMe

Meet The Bacteria That Make A Stink In Your Pits – Poncie Rutsch – NPR
Bacterial genetic pathway involved in body odor production discovered – Science Daily

Should Gut Bugs Influence the 2015 Dietary Guidelines? – Cameron Wells – US News

Glowing Tampons Help Detect Sewage Leaks – Gwen Pearson – Wired

Nearly half of hospital uniforms are washed in temperatures too cool to kill bacteria, says DMU research – De Montfort University
Egyptians Brewed Beer in Tel Aviv 5,000 Years Ago – Megan Gannon – Live Science

Conferences

#IHMC2015: 5th International Human Microbiome Congress, March 31-April 2, 2015, Luxembourg (6/23 plenary speakers are women)

The 2nd Microbiome R&D and Business Collaboration Forum Europe, May 07 – 08, 2015, London, UK (10/36 listed speakers are women)

1st Annual Translational Microbiome Conference, 13–14 May 2015, Boston, United States (5/11 speakers are women)

ASM General Meeting, May 30 – June 2, 2015, New Orleans, LA, USA

Symbiomes: Systems Biology of Host-Microbiome Interactions, 5-10 June 2015, Pultusk, Poland (5/17 speakers are women)

The Human Microbiome, 10-12 Jun 2015, EMBL Heidelberg, Germany (8/23 confirmed speakers are women)

Exploring Human Host-Microbiome Interactions in Health and Disease, June 29 – July 1, 2015 , Cambridge, UK (7/17 speakers are women)

Science, publishing, and career

How Articles Get Noticed and Advance the Scientific Conversation – Victoria Costello – PLOS Blogs

Writing a Good Peer Review to Improve Scholarship: What Editors Value and Authors Find Helpful – H. McLaughlin – Social Work Education: The International Journal

DiscussionMistake index as a surrogate of quality in scientific manuscripts – Antoni Margalida – PNAS USA

What if you could replace performance evaluations with four simple questions? – Jena McGregor – Washington Post

Bik’s Picks

What 60 Minutes Got Right And Wrong On Duke’s Polio Virus Trial Against Glioblastoma – David Kroll – Forbes.com

The Astonishing beauty of Ordinary Sand magnified 250X – Aetherforce

What Elephants and Whales Look Like From Space – Robinson Meyer – The Atlantic

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March 30, 2015

Microbiome in rhinosinusitis patients, microbes in permafrost, and responses of soil to deforestation.

Meetings
London Microbiome Meeting 2015 (LMM2015), St. Thomas’ Hospital, 28 May 2015

Human respiratory microbiome

Sinus microbiota varies among chronic rhinosinusitis phenotypes and predicts surgical outcome – Vijay R. Ramakrishnan – Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Animal microbiome

Antimicrobial resistance in faecal samples from buffalo, wildebeest and zebra grazing together with and without cattle in Tanzania – A.A.S. Katakweba – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Soil and plant root microbiome

Soil microbiome responses to the short-term effects of Amazonian deforestation
Acacio A. Navarrete – Molecular Ecology

Reconstructed metagenomes reveal changes of microbial functional profiling during PAHs degradation along a rice (Oryza sativa) rhizosphere gradient – B. Ma – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Profiling bacterial diversity in a limestone cave of the western Loess Plateau of China – Yucheng Wu – Frontiers in Microbiology

Extremophile microbiome

Structure, mineralogy, and microbial diversity of geothermal spring microbialites associated with a deep oil drilling in Romania – Cristian Coman – Frontiers in Microbiology

Shifts in methanogenic community composition and methane fluxes along the degradation of discontinuous permafrost – Mette M. Svenning – Frontiers in Microbiology

Bioreactor microbiome

Analysis of microbial community composition in a lab-scale membrane distillation bioreactor – Q. Zhang – Journal of Applied Microbiology

Food microbiology

Diffusion of solutes inside bacterial colonies immobilized in model cheese depends on their physicochemical properties: a time-lapse microscopy study – Juliane Floury – Frontiers in Microbiology

Metagenomics

It’s a dirty job — A robust method for the purification and de novo genome assembly of Cryptosporidium from clinical material – Sofia Andersson – Journal of Microbiological Methods

Bioinformatics and statistics

Power and Sample-Size Estimation for Microbiome Studies Using Pairwise Distances and PERMANOVA – Brendan J. Kelly – Bioinformatics

More microbe papers

Review: Tackling antibiotic resistance: the environmental framework – Thomas U. Berendonk – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Microbes in the news

You Should Know: Kristina Campbell and The Intestinal Gardener – DNLee – Scientific American
Link to blog: The Intestinal Gardener – Kristina Campbell

Video of the February VLAB meeting at Stanford: Gut-Feeling — Ventures into the Microbiome – Colleen Cutcliffe – VLAB videos

Chronic Rhinosinusitis Varies By Bacterial Microbiome – Vijay R. Ramakrishnan – Medical Research

Doctors: How gut bacteria affects obesity, diabetes, child health – Jondi Gumz – Santa Cruz Sentinel

The bacteria that could make your blue jeans greener – Michael Keller – Green Biz

Bacteria power up by using magnets as batteries – Catherine Brahic – New Scientist

Antibiotics from the medieval medicine cabinet: Could medieval medicine provide new antibiotics to treat deadly modern infections? – CrowdFunder

Science, publishing and career

These scientists studied journalists covering science. Whoa, meta. – Suzanne Jacobs – Grist

Let’s compare the backgrounds of science writers for Fox and NPR – Boing Boing

Mind the (gender) gap: Kew’s records show fewer than 3% of land plant species published by women – Lauren Gardiner – Kew Royal Botanical Gardens

I’m an engineer, not a cheerleader. Let’s abandon silly rules about gender roles. – Sara Sakowitz – Washington Post

Bik’s Picks

Velvet Worms, Squirting Slime – James Gorman – New York Times

An apple a day may not keep the doctor away, study says – Lindsey Tanner – Big Story AP

Family income, parental education related to brain structure in children, adolescents – Science Daily

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March 28, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-03-28 at 1.00.33 AMFeatured video

I had hoped that this would have been a better video. The opening text/visuals are very confusing, and the cartoon human looks like a sad penguin. Is it supposed to be a human? Or human cells inside the human? Or a bacterium? And why is it looking so sad? #SadPenguin

Video (2014): Microbes: The Residents Living On And Inside You – Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

 

Human oral microbiome

Acetaldehyde production by major oral microbes – Keisuke Moritani – Oral Diseases

Prelude to oral microbes and chronic diseases: Past, present and future – Kalina R. Atanasova – Microbes and Infection

Effect of dental cements on peri-implant microbial community: comparison of the microbial communities inhabiting the peri-implant tissue when using different luting cements – Michael Korsch – Clinical Oral Implants Research

Human gut microbiome

Common occurrence of antibacterial agents in human intestinal microbiota – Fatima Drissi – Frontiers in Microbiology

Maintaining gut ecosystems for health: Are transitory food bugs stowaways or part of the crew? – Coline Plé – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Size does not matter: commensal microorganisms forge tumorpromoting inflammation and anti-tumor immunity – Melanie R. Rutkowski – Oncoscience

Review: Time for Food: The Intimate Interplay between Nutrition, Metabolism, and the Circadian Clock – Gad Asher – Cell

Animal microbiome

Horses: Characterization and comparison of the bacterial microbiota in different gastrointestinal tract compartments in horses – M.C. Costa – The Veterinary Journal

Fish: Declining diversity of egg-associated bacteria during development of naturally spawned whitefish embryos (Coregonus spp.) – Laetitia G. E. Wilkins – Aquatic Sciences

Bees (see also under “Other microbiology” below): Characterization of gut bacteria at different developmental stages of Asian honey bees, Apis cerana – Jun Guo – Journal of Invertebrate Pathology

Soil, rock, and marble microbiome

Biofouling of marbles by oxygenic photosynthetic microorganisms – Zeki Karaca – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Water microbiome

Bacterial diversity of polluted surface sediments in the northern Adriatic Sea determined by pyrosequencing – Marino Korlević – Systematic and Applied Microbiology

Extremophile microbiome

Genomics in a changing Arctic: Critical questions await the molecular ecologist – Stan D. Wullschleger – Molecular Ecology

Microbial diversity on Icelandic glaciers and ice caps – Stefanie Lutz – Frontiers in Microbiology

Other microbiology

Antimicrobial-Induced DNA Damage and Genomic Instability in Microbial Pathogens –
Rebecca S. Shapiro – PLOS Pathogens

Parallel Epigenomic and Transcriptomic Responses to Viral Infection in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) – David A. Galbraith – PLOS Pathogens

News

Planetary Protection Workshop (Forward Contamination) – Jenna Lang – MicroBEnet

How to keep up with microbial ecology and the built environment: microBEnet is your place – Jonathan Eisen – The Tree of Life

Italian Researchers Publish Array Method to Profile Vaginal Microbiome, Gauge Treatment Response – Molika Ashford – Genome Web

Social constructs and behaviors can predict microbiome composition – American Microbiome Institute

Not a good title: Hunter-Gatherers Have Better Guts Than We Do – Cody Brooks – Clapway

The tiny intruders in YOUR home: Researchers reveal the average house has 8,000 different types of bacteria and bugs – Mark Prigg

Drug metabolism: manipulating the microbiome – Sarah DeWeerdt – Pharmaceutical Journal

A High-Fat Diet May Alter Your Behavior and Your Brain with Changed Gut Bacteria – Catherine Griffin – Science World Report

Surfwear founder’s charity backs UQ researcher in superbug war – University of Queensland

Paywalled: Bacteria: Master Microbial Colonizers – Marcia Stone – BioScience

A Farmer Drilled For Water, But What Came Up Turned This Desert Into An Oasis! – OffGridQuest

Science, publishing and career

BioMed Central retracting 43 papers for fake peer review – Cat Ferguson – Retraction Watch

Bik’s Picks

Crossing fingers can reduce feelings of pain – Science Daily

Giant pandas’ secret social life revealed – Bob Holmes – New Scientist

Watch Scientists Try Everything to Put a Camera on a Manatee – Jane J. Lee – National Geographic

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March 26, 2015

General microbiome

Note: not about metagenomics but 16S rRNA gene: The truth about metagenomics: quantifying and counteracting bias in 16S rRNA studies – J Paul Brooks – BMC Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Spatial Variation in the Healthy Human Lung Microbiome and the Adapted Island Model of Lung Biogeography – Robert P. Dickson – Annals ATS

A metagenomic approach to characterize temperate bacteriophage populations from Cystic Fibrosis and non-Cystic Fibrosis bronchiectasis patients – Mohammad A. Tariq – Frontiers in Microbiology

Perspective: Meningitis in adolescents: the role of commensal microbiota – James W.B. Moir – Trends in Microbiology

Human gut microbiome

An n=1 case report of a child with autism improving on antibiotics and a father’s quest to understand what it may mean – John Rodakis – Microbial Ecology of Health and Disease

Animal microbiome

Sponges: Culturable associated-bacteria of the sponge Theonella swinhoei show tolerance to high arsenic concentrations – Ray Keren – Frontiers in Microbiology

Soil, sediment, and plant root microbiome

Community Dynamics of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in High-Input and Intensively Irrigated Rice Cultivation Systems – Yutao Wang – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Analysis of methane-producing and metabolizing archaeal and bacterial communities in sediments of the northern South China Sea and coastal Mai Po Nature Reserve revealed by PCR amplification of mcrA and pmoA genes – Zhichao Zhou – Frontiers in Microbiology

Isolation and characterization of culturable bacteria from bulk soil samples and the rhizosphere of arid-adapted Tylosema esculentum (Burchell). A. Schreiber (Marama bean) in Namibia – Olaf S. Kandjimi – African Journal of Biotechnology

Water microbiome

Prokaryotic assemblages and metagenomes in pelagic zones of the South China Sea – Ching-Hung Tseng – BMC Genomics

Spatial distribution of bacterial communities driven by multiple environmental factors in a beach wetland of the largest freshwater lake in China – Xia Ding- Frontiers in Microbiology

Review: Advancing the science of microbial symbiosis to support invasive species management: a case study on Phragmites in the Great Lakes – Kurt P. Kowalski – Frontiers in Microbiology

Extremophile microbiome (by special request!)

Colonization of plant substrates at hydrothermal vents and cold seeps in the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean and occurrence of symbiont-related bacteria – Kamil M. Szafranski – Frontiers in Microbiology

Out of the dark: transitional subsurface-to-surface microbial diversity in a terrestrial serpentinizing seep (Manleluag, Pangasinan, the Philippines) – Kristin M. Woycheese – Frontiers in Microbiology

Isolation of diverse members of the Aquificales from geothermal springs in Tengchong, China – Brian P. Hedlund – Frontiers in Microbiology

Fatty Acids Profile of Microbial Populations in a Mining Reclaimed Region Contaminated with Metals: Relation with Ecological Characteristics and Soil Respiration – Ramya Narendrula and Kabwe K. Nkongolo – Journal of Bioremediation & Biodegradation

Bioreactor microbiome

Nitrogen addition, not initial phylogenetic diversity, increases litter decomposition by fungal communities – Anthony S. Amend – Frontiers in Microbiology

Food microbiology

Lipidomics as an important key for identification of beer-spoilage bacteria – Tomáš Řezanka – Letters in Applied Microbiology

Metabolomics

Combining reverse genetics and NMR-based metabolomics unravels trypanosome-specific metabolic pathways – Frédéric Bringaud – Molecular Microbiology

Resource niche overlap promotes stability of bacterial community metabolism in experimental microcosms – Ellard R. Hunting – Frontiers in Microbiology

Techniques

Enriching distinctive microbial communities from marine sediments via an electrochemical-sulfide-oxidizing process on carbon electrodes – Shiue-Lin Li and Kenneth H. Nealson – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbes in presentations

Video: Dissertation seminar for Suzanne Ishaq – comparative analysis of the moose rumen microbiota

Video: Vance Kramer of Syngenta discussing microbiome research and comparing soil microbe communities across the US, Europe, and Brazil.

Video: Dr. Jan Jones from AgBiome discussing the plant-soil microbiome

Microbes in the news
Hidden Life Forms: Investigating Microbial Diversity on Our Bodies and in Our Homes – Jennifer Cutraro – New York Times

My uBiome Sleep Hacking Update – Alexandra Carmichael – uBiome

Antimicrobial CRISPR-Cas systems may be better weapons against bacteria than antibiotics – The Conversation

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: Big Data, Genomics and Urban Microbiomes – Big Bad Bald Bastard

Antibiotics For Gut Bacteria Show Surprising Results In Treating Autism – Dianne Depra – Tech Times

Harmless bacteria may be helpful against meningococcal outbreaks – Eureka Alert

New Software Offers Improved Read-based Identification in Metagenome Studies – Andrew P. Han – Genome Web

Not sure which one, but here it is: I am the bacterium that lives in your intestine – MicrobeWorld

FMTUpdate on OpenBiome – Paul Levy – Not Running A Hospital

Workshop on Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for Human Extraterrestrial Missions (Intro) – Jenna Lang – Microbe.net

Microbes and art

A Dress Made From Beer And Bacteria: C’est Chic Or C’est Ick? – Charles Poladian – IB Times

Science, publishing, and career

Developing microbiological learning materials for schools: best practice – James Redfern – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Sequencing and characterizing the genome of Estrella lausannensis as an undergraduate project: training students and biological insights – Claire Bertelli – Frontiers in Microbiology

Calling attention to poor speaker gender ratio – even when it hurts – Jonathan Eisen – The Tree of Life

The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of STEM – Joan C. Williams – Harvard Business Review

Bik’s Picks

Jurrassic Park, but then with more furWoolly mammoth could be revived after scientists paste DNA into elephant’s genetic code – Andrew Griffin – The Independent

The Fitness Guru of the Trucking Industry – The Atlantic

On Friday, half a pair of twins leaves for a year in space. Here’s why that’s awesome. – Rachel Feltman – Washington Post

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