A united front – contamination in biotech drugs : Nature
“At least 17 incidences of viral contamination in biologics have been reported, but industry insiders say that many more go unreported. Rather than risk n...
Category: Science
‘Disease-Proof Mosquito’ Could Spread Like Wildfire – ScienceNOW
“The scientists used a so-called homing-endonuclease gene (HEG), a selfish gene found in fungi, plants, and bacteria that has the ability to create a seco...
Education: The PhD factory : Nature News
“Scientists who attain a PhD are rightly proud — they have gained entry to an academic elite. But it is not as elite as it once was. The number of science...
Education: Rethinking PhDs : Nature News
“Fix it, overhaul it or skip it completely — institutions and individuals are taking innovative approaches to postgraduate science training.” Read t...
Gut bacteria in Japanese people borrowed sushi-digesting genes from ocean bacteria | Discover Magazine
“Nori is, by far, the most likely source of bacteria with porphyran-digesting genes. It’s the only food that humans eat that contains any porphyrans and u...
Divided by language, united by gut bacteria – people have three common gut types | Discover Magazine
“Enterotypes aren’t quite as well-defined as, say, blood groups, but they could have similar uses as medical markers. The microbiome helps us to digest ou...
ScienceShot: Green Eggs and Salamanders – ScienceNOW
“This is the first case of an algae living symbiotically within a vertebrate, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of National Academy of Scie...
Book: The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
This is one great book. It’s set a few hundred years in the future, long after the oil-fueled “Exapansion” (that would be the time we are livi...
Antarctic microbes live life to the extreme : Nature News
“You might not expect bacteria living in Antarctic ice to be well suited to life in a boiling kettle, but that is what Chilean scientists discovered durin...
ScienceShot: Toads Keep Their Brains Germ-Free – ScienceNOW
“By performing genetic analyses and mass spectrometry on ground-up toad brains, the researchers found 79 different antimicrobial peptides—the widest varie...