Microbiology

Researchers say they have discovered how to transform human embryonic stem cells into germ cells, the embryonic cells that ultimately give rise to sperm and eggs, an advance that will allow researchers to observe previously inaccessible human germ cells in laboratory dishes.

"This achievement opens a new window into what was only recently a hidden stage of human development," said Susan B. Shurin, M.D., acting director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the NIH Institute that provided funding for the study. "Laboratory observation of human germ cells has the potential to yield important clues to the origins of unexplained infertility and to the genesis of many birth defects and chromosomal disorders."

Your Jack-o'-Lantern may scare away more than just birds - the skin of that pumpkin contains a substance that could put a scare into microbes that cause millions of cases of yeast infections in adults and infants each year, says a new study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Kyung-Soo Hahm, Yoonkyung Park and colleagues note that some disease-causing microbes are becoming resistant to existing antibiotics so scientists worldwide are searching for new antibiotics. Past studies had hinted that pumpkin, long used as folk medicine in some countries, might have antibiotic effects.

For those who enjoyed our first set of bacteria art images, you will definitely want to check out Microbial Art.

www.microbialart.com

For those who enjoyed our first set of bacteria art images, you will definitely want to check out Microbial Art.

www.microbialart.com

Parts of our genetic programs that determine programmed cell death in plants and animals are actually evolutionarily related and function in a similar way, according to an article in Nature Cell Biology.

Research has previously believed that animals and plants developed different genetic programs for cell death. 

Seen on a culture plate of a member of my lab that is not me (i.e., ain't supposed to be there).  I see a turkey, but maybe I'm just hungry.

One of the professors at my marine station retired, and is in the process of clearing out his lab. This has resulted in a sudden windfall of free stuff, some awesome (an invertebrate textbook so old it lists the phylum Vermes) and some completely useless (ancient test tubes of unknown contamination history).

The most awesome to date was a box of squid, fixed and embedded in plastic over ten years ago. These squid provided the data for the study which proved horizonal transmission of the symbiotic bacteria in the accessory nidamental gland.

I know, right? Isn't that amazing?

An RNA-powered nanomotor has become the engine for an artificial pore able to transmit nanoscale material through a membrane, the next step in research on using nanomotors to package and deliver therapeutic agents directly to infected cells. Eventually this could enable use of nanoscale medical devices to diagnose and treat diseases.

In a study led by University of Cincinnati (UC) biomedical engineering professor Peixuan Guo, PhD, members of the team inserted the modified core of a nanomotor, a microscopic biological machine, into a lipid membrane. The resulting channel enabled them to move both single- and double-stranded DNA through the membrane.  The engineered channel could have applications in nano-sensing, gene delivery, drug loading and DNA sequencing, says Guo.

A new study from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg says middle-aged women who have large abdominal fat cells are at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to women with smaller fat cells. Waist circumference divided by body height can also be used to determine which women are at risk.

The study is based on the extensive population study of women in "Gothenburg Kvinnoundersökningen i Göteborg". 

The smell of 'death' that repels insects turns out to be a truly ancient signal for avoiding disease or predators, says David Rollo, professor of biology at McMaster University in the journal Evolutionary Biology.

What do the death stench of corpses of from insects to crustaceans all have in common?   A blend of specific fatty acids. 

Because insects and crustaceans diverged more than 400-million years ago it is likely that most subsequent species recognize their dead in a similar way, that the origin of such signals was likely even older, and that such behavior initially occurred in aquatic environments (few crustaceans are terrestrial).