BacterioFiles Micro Edition 133 - Microbe Manacles Metal, Muzzles Microbe

This episode: A strain of E. coli helps reduce severity of Salmonella infection by competing with it for iron in the gut!

Download Episode (7.6 MB, 8.3 minutes)

Show notes:
News item/Journal Paper

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter, MicrobeWorld, or Facebook

This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

BacterioFiles Micro Edition 132 - Microbes Modify Mitochrondrial Material

This episode: Some bacterial DNA sequence seems to integrate into human cells, especially in cancerous tissue!

Download Episode (11.3 MB, 12.3 minutes)

Show notes:
News item/Journal Paper/Review of animal-bacterial lateral gene transfer

Other interesting stories:

**Bacteria are important for health of corals
**Desert bacterium makes more and better bioplastic
**Fungi that can survive at negative temperatures, and how (paper)
**Crop rotation helps maintain diversity of soil community
**Gut microbes can contribute to speciation, in insects

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter, MicrobeWorld, or Facebook

This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

BacterioFiles Micro Edition 131 - Stacking Sucker Symbionts

This episode: Some insects have bacterial symbionts with super-small genomes inside their cells, and some of these symbionts have their own internal bacterial symbionts!

Download Episode (6.7 MB, 7.3 minutes)

Show notes:
News item 1/News item 2/News item 3/Journal Paper

Crowdfunding opportunity to help clean up the environment with microbes

Other interesting stories:

**Making art with plates of glowing bacteria
**Predatory bacteria seem to be helpful for treating eye infections
**Bacteria floating all around the earth, could help with climate
**Making bioplastic polymers is important even in bacterium-insect symbioses (paper)
**New strains of bacteria could make better biofuels

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter, MicrobeWorld, or Facebook

This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

Crowd-funding: Help Support Research into Using Bacteria to Clean Up the Environment

I've been interested in crowd-funding science for a while. Science is one of the best investments a society can make, so why not let society invest in it directly? There are many research proposals people have made on different crowdfunding websites, but here is one that is relevant to the interests of this show:

Directing the Evolution of Bacteria to Clean Up Toxic Waste

This research team is using directed evolution to develop strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that can chelate and remove heavy metal contaminants from the environment. They're trying to raise money directly from the public to support their research. If you want to participate in this project, at least indirectly, you can donate and/or spread the word!

From the site: "Heavy metal pollution is more common than most people realize and it causes serious environmental and health problems. Our research aims to clean up this toxic waste using organisms modified by a process called directed evolution."

Click the link for more information. For science!

BacterioFiles Micro Edition 130 - Bacteriophages Bind Boogers

This episode: Phages hang out in mucus to ambush bacteria!

Download Episode (6.4 MB, 7 minutes)

Show notes:
News item 1/News item 2/Journal Paper

Other interesting stories:

**Green algae eat bacteria, suggesting route for origin of eukaryotes
**Bacteria could help clean up estrogen contaminants in drinking water
**Bacteria help clean up poop-filled cave
**Microbes could help with making Mars habitable
**Virus gene therapy helps the blind see

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter, MicrobeWorld, or Facebook

This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.