Thanks to Mitch Balish for calling my attention to this one. SR1 bacteria are not exactly a household name, even among microbiologists. They were first discovered in contaminated aquifers, and since then they were found to be also in animal and insect guts, as well as in human mouths. They are even suspected of being […]
Displaying posts tagged with
“metagenomics”
The power of single-cell genomics: the mysterious SR1 bacteria have a unique genetic code
By Iddo on March 29th, 2013
Our Home’s Wild Life
By Iddo on November 17th, 2012
Today Nitzan & I were citizen-scientists, sampling several locations in our home for microbial sequencing. We did this as part of Your Wild Life, a project hosted at North Carolina State University’s Biology Department. The Wild Life of Our Homes looks to sequence household microbial communities in a large number of homes. From their […]
Bioinformatics, Metagenomics
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Open Job: How did the Gulf Oil Spill Affect the Ocean’s Microbiome?
By Iddo on October 18th, 2012
Well, we’re not sure. But if you would like to find out, and you are on the market for an exciting postdoc position, this is the best way to go about it: Postdoctoral Position in Laboratory of Jack A. Gilbert. http://www.bio.anl.gov/PI/gilbert.html http://pondside.uchicago.edu/ecol-evol/people/gilbert.html The Macondo wellhead oil leak, also known as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill […]
Evolution, Genomics, Metagenomics, Microbiology
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Repost: the New Natural History
By Iddo on September 20th, 2012
Today is the last day of the 19th Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics meeting. A great meeting of everything good: science, atmosphere, people and location. Good tweeter coverage too, at #LAMG12 The many genomic characterization talks in the meeting reminded me of a post I wrote three years ago. I decided to repost it, and dedicate […]
The Inside Poop
By Iddo on May 4th, 2012
It’s pretty much common knowledge that mother’s milk is the healthiest food for infants, and that it bestows health benefits upon mother and baby that formula feeding cannot match. The unique combination of lipids, sugars, proteins and antibodies is not even close to being rivaled by baby formula manufacturers. With few exceptions, such as when […]
Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Genomics, Health, Metagenomics, Microbiology, Travel
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Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics Conference
By Iddo on September 14th, 2010
Quick post: at the Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics Conference. I’m a bad microblogger, but thankfully Jonathan Eisen and Ruchira Datta are doing a great job of covering this conference live. There is a friendfeed room. The Twitter hashtag is #LAMG10. The science, people, food and location are all great. My student, David Ream, is presenting […]
Obesity: the role of the immune system
By Iddo on April 25th, 2010
Obesity is one symptom of several, which together constitute what is now termed metabolic syndrome. Morbid obesity is also associated with a host of other symptoms including high blood sugar, high blood lipids, insulin resistance and liver disorders. The root causes of which are traced back to excessive food consumption, reduced physical activity and in […]
I never metagenomics I didn’t like
By Iddo on April 7th, 2010
“Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” — Proverbs 27:2 “What-ever” — Me In PLoS Computational Biology this week, a trio of researchers provides a review of the challenges that metagenomics might ― and already do ― pose for bioinformaticians. The authors refer to metagenomic […]
A sh*tload of data
By Iddo on March 4th, 2010
There are more microbial cells in our body than our own. Those microbes are not just passive hitchhikers or conversely, malicious agents of disease. They affect our well-being and health in a much broader spectrum than simply “bad” or “passive”. Among other things our gut microbes play an important role in digestion, have been linked […]
Bioinformatics, Metagenomics, Microbiology, stuctural biology
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Photosynthesis, phages and structures: there’s treasure everywhere!
By Iddo on November 24th, 2009
Here’s a really cool work, published this September in Nature.. Why did I choose this work? Well, it’s a major discovery, and it’s all done using bioinformatics, and fairly simple bioinformatics at that. The power of metagenomics and bioinfromatics: in a mass of data you just have to know what you are looking for, and […]
The medium-rare biosphere
By Iddo on October 9th, 2009
All the roots hang down Swing from town to town They are marching around Down under your boots All the trucks unload Beyond the gopher holes There’s a world going on Underground — Tom Waits, “Underground” Our picture of the microbial biosphere is heavily skewed towards what we can see, culture, and are interested in. […]
The Craigslist of Antibiotic Resistance
By Iddo on September 6th, 2009
(Before we get going: this the the 100th post on Byte Size Biology. Happy Birthday to me!) Resistance to antibiotics is a huge clinical problem. In the US, more people die of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections (nearly 19,000 in 2006) than of AIDS (14,627). We know that antibiotic resistance is carried on mobile genetic […]
Bioinformatics, Microbiology, Software, Technology
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Absolut standards: report from the M3-2009 meeting, part 2: signature genes and big science
By Iddo on July 27th, 2009
Some more presentations from the metagenomics, metadata, and metaanalysis (M3) meeting, Stockholm June 27, 2009 Pathway Signature Genes Lucas A. Brouwers, Martijn A. Huynen and Bas E. Dutilh CMBI / NCMLS, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands If we take a sample of soil, how can we know whether it is adequate for growing […]
Bioinformatics, Evolution, Genomics, Microbiology
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Absolut standards: report from the Metagenomics Metadata and Metaanalysis 2009 meeting. Part 1
By Iddo on July 20th, 2009
The first metagenomics, metadata and metaanalysis meeting held in Stockholm June 27 2009 was a raging success. People were standing all the way back to the hall jostling for elbow room, while all the other concurrent meetings were pitifully empty after word has made it about how awesome we were. OK, I may be exaggerating […]
Microbiology
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Skin Flick 2: Statistic Boogaloo
By Iddo on June 1st, 2009
Reports on the first metagenomic survey of skin bacteria (see my previous post) did not go unnoticed by the popular media. Reports appear in US News & world Report, LA Times, Times of India, National Geographic, and Scientific American. All these articles have one thing in common: they are wrong. Yes, even Scientific American. All […]
