ecology
hrynyshyn | March 14, 2007Marine biologists have discovered that there's a lot more life in the ocean that can turn sunlight into fuel than anyone thought. The authors of the paper in which the finding appears don't come out and say it in their scientific publication, but the Washington Post convinced one of them to hint at the possibility of using this alternative to photosynthesis to design new and clean energy sources. It's way to early to start counting your chickens, but it is a fascinating possibility...
In "The Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition: Northwest Atlantic through Eastern Tropical Pacific" a…
mikethemadbiologist | March 7, 2007Or maybe terrifying is a better word. I just returned from the Network on Antimicrobial Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus meeting, where I learned some very interesting things about S. aureus (since I'm going to refer to MRSA, methicillin resistant S. aureus repeatedly, go check this link if you want to know more about MRSA):
1) 43% of all skin infections in the U.S. are the result of one strain of MRSA. Not 43% of staphylococcal infections. All skin infections.
2) According to the NHANES study, the number of people who carry S. aureus asymptomatically (in other words, it lives up your…
mikethemadbiologist | March 1, 2007It sure looks that way. Last night, I was talking to a colleague and he told me that several groups, including his, are seeing a very interesting pattern in commensal Escherichia coli (those E. coli that live in everyone's gut and aren't making us sick).
In humans, it appears that roughly 20% of all commensal E. coli belong to one of three clones that have a global distribution (in bacteriology, a clone is a group of very closely related strains). (an aside: In animals, there doesn't appear to be this skewed pattern. In animals, the distribution of clones appears to be more evenly…
hrynyshyn | February 27, 2007The good people at the Center for Biological Diversity have declared today "Polar Bear Day." It's not that big a stretch, since a bunch of science-types have declared 2007 the International Polar Year. So what the heck? Help save the polar bear. Incidentally, a little while back I was commissioned to write a report on polar bear ecology and conservation. I'm relatively pleased with it, too, if I don't say so myself.
clock | February 15, 2007The latest issue of Conservation Magazine has picked several 'people to watch in 2007', including Randy Olson and Martin Wikelski.
Who do you think are 'people to watch in 2007'?
mikethemadbiologist | February 15, 2007I've blogged before about how, for children under five, it's not the 'sexy' microbes that kill, but instead, the run of the mill ones: the bacteria that cause diarrhea and pneumonia are the culprits. One of the things I have heard a lot of recently regarding antibiotic development (and related therapies) is that we need to focus on 'non-paradigm' and non-model organisms. There's a problem with that approach:
The non-standard microbes aren't the ones causing the bulk of bacterial disease.
Oh dear.
In roaming around the International Society for Microbial Resistance website, I came across…
tsmith | February 12, 2007I'll try to get the third installment on normal flora "basics" up tomorrow, before I spend Wednesday at Darwin Day events here in Iowa City and then the next few days at AAAS in San Francisco. In the meantime, in case you've not come across it yet, John Wilkins has been keeping an updated list of "Basics" posts here; new and notable for readers here include Shelley's post on prions and Jeremy's on ecology.
tsmith | February 9, 2007What's killing honey bees?
Something is wiping out honey bees across North America and a team of researchers is rushing to find out what it is.
What's being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has now been seen in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and way out in California. Some bee keepers have lost up to 80 percent of their colonies to the mysterious disorder.
Now, I'm admittedly not much of a bee fan. Several of my relatives are highly allergic, and I've only been stung once and hope I'll be fine if it happens again, but they do kind of make me nervous when I see them…
tsmith | February 8, 2007So, I left off on Tuesday noting two things about our normal flora: 1) that in the big picture, we know hardly anything about them; and 2) that one reason we know so little about them is because we've never grown many of them in a laboratory setting--that is, we've never cultured them using our typical tools of the trade.
What's one way to remedy this? Eliminate the need for culture, and take some cues from the microbial ecologists. More on this below.
I've mentioned the term "metagenomics" previously on this blog (see the stories about it here and here). Using this technique,…
retrospectacle | February 8, 2007 Researchers have recently discovered that male chimps routinely physically abuse female chimps, sometimes even using branches as weapons. But, why would they do that?
Chimps don't form monogamous pairs; rather, mating is dictated by the females' estrus cycles. During estrus, the competition for access to these few fertile females is intense. The leading theory, albeit a shaky one, is that the physical abuse is punishment for female chimps' promiscuity. By bullying them, they are discouraged from seeking other males, making it more likely that resulting offspring is his. Another explanation…
clock | February 3, 2007Russ, correctly, points out that the new UN report on Climate Change says not a word about the impact global warming will have on ecosystems, plants and animals (including the human animal).
tsmith | February 2, 2007Introduction to Microbiology and Infectious Disease
You and your normal flora, Part I
You and your normal flora, Part II
retrospectacle | February 1, 2007Last night I became embroiled in an interesting discussion: is the survival of a species (or, insert word here) inherently valuable, in and of itself? Does the fact that it currently exists *right now* somehow entitle it to preservation, or at least restraint when it comes to its demise?
The context I was thinking of was in regards to conservation. We've all heard the startling statistic that dozens of species go extinct every year, however this is mostly insects, plants, etc. These events do not make the news, or even cause a blip in the radar of conservation groups like the WWF, PETA,…
clock | January 29, 2007I love seafood, but I eat it quite rarely. About a third of my old Department did fisheries and aquaculture science so I've seen many seminars and Thesis defenses on the topic and am quite aware of the problems with the world's fisheries stocks.
I also prefer freshwater fish - I grew up on the Danube and my Mom fixes the best Fish Soup in the history of the Universe.
But, if you like seafood and you want to eat shrimp occasionally, yet you want to act in an environmentally responsible way, you need to know quite a lot about ecology, about behavior and natural history of shrimp, about the…
tsmith | January 11, 2007In yesterday's post regarding the current outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Kenya, I noted:
...while there's little people in the area can do about periodic flooding, scientists are actively examining the relationship between weather and RVF outbreaks. This hopefully will prove useful to predict--and potentially ward off--future disease outbreaks via animal vaccination.
Little did I know that this outbreak had already been predicted by scientists working in this area--back in September. More after the jump...
The deaths from Rift Valley fever could have been avoided if Kenya had heeded a…
tsmith | January 10, 2007 When it comes to hemorrhagic fevers, Ebola and Marburg tend to get the lions' share of the press. Both are highly fatal, both can cause people to die in excruciating ways, and both have come to represent somewhat our fear of and fascination with emerging exotic diseases. However, as I've pointed out previously, as far as actual fatalities--or even illnesses go--both viruses are small potatoes. Other viruses that can also have hemorrhagic manifestations--including dengue and yellow fever--are much more common. One of these other viruses that frequently causes hemorrhagic fever is Rift…
chaoticutopia | January 9, 2007As a writer, I love to use metaphors to explain what I see. Sometimes, it is much easier to describe how something is like another thing than it is to describe the thing itself. The metaphor adds a subjective layer of context to a thing, making the unfamiliar familiar. Language is, in some part, all subjective layers of context: a thing is a thing; we label and describe it for our convenience. We come to agreements about our language, about our use of labels, to the point where a thing and its label are indistinguishable.
The word "water" is indistinguishable from water itself, as it is…
clock | January 4, 2007Tenth in the series of mini-lecture notes for the speed-class BIO101 for adults. Find errors. Suggest improvements. (May 21, 2006)
--------------------------------------------------Ecology
BIO101 - Bora Zivkovic - Lecture 3 - Part 2
Ecology is the study of relationships of organisms with one another and their environment. Organisms are organized in populations, communities, ecosystems, biomes and the biosphere.
A population of organisms is a sum of all individuals of a single species living in one area at one time.
Individuals in a population can occupy space in three basic patterns:…
clock | January 1, 2007Food From Cloned Animals Safe? FDA Says Yes, But Asks Suppliers To Hold Off For Now:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued three documents on the safety of animal cloning -- a draft risk assessment; a proposed risk management plan; and a draft guidance for industry.
The draft risk assessment finds that meat and milk from clones of adult cattle, pigs and goats, and their offspring, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals. The assessment was peer-reviewed by a group of independent scientific experts in cloning and animal health. They agreed with the methods…