Since fall is my favorite season, I decided to see if there’s a microbe that’s unique to pumpkins. A quick search told me no, not really, but I also found that Pseudomonas syringae causes warts to form on pumpkins (to temper expectations, the bacterium is not behind the intentionally warty pumpkins we see at farmstands…
Originally published October 9, 2024. Updated October 15, 2026. Pharmacies and doctors start booking flu vaccine appointments in late August, long before the number of flu cases are on the rise. The CDC recommends getting vaccinated in September or October. But most years, flu cases don’t peak for a couple months. So what’s the data…
When you think of ancient medicine, what comes to mind? Potions? A concoction of herbal ingredients bubbling away? Old books full of recipes? Before modern medicine, people have been creating ways to treat various ailments. So in today’s blog post, we see how one of these recipes holds up scientifically.
There’s a day/week/month for everything nowadays. And it’s getting harder to track all of these microbiology related events and historical dates. That’s why I made a calendar of events to better keep these dates all in one place. This microbiology calendar includes both historical dates (like birthdays of historical figures in microbiology) as well as…
I’m so excited to introduce you to my favorite bacteria – and the subject from my PhD research – Helicobacter pylori. After spending the early 2010s growing this somewhat finicky bacterium and studying how it builds the flagellum (a tail-like structure it uses to move around). In fact, the picture above is a transmission electron…