On this date in 1843, Robert Koch, the founder of modern microbiology was born. And on December 10, 1905, one day before his 62nd birthday, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on tuberculosis.
Author: Jennifer Tsang
What’s Growing in My Showerhead? – The Showerhead Microbiome Project
Have you ever wondered what microbes are brewing in your showerhead? The Showerhead Microbiome Project is finding out! This project, run by a multi-institution group of researchers, is identifying what microbes live in showerheads and how the physical properties of the water and showerhead type may influence the microbial communities. But why should we even…
Meet a Microbiologist: Marcos Voutsinos
While most of us worry about the ripeness of our bananas, Marcos Voutsinos has been preoccupied with something else: the banana freckle. Despite its innocuous name, banana freckle is actually a fungal disease caused by the fungus Phyllosticta cavendishii and characterized by “freckles” of fungus on the banana fruit, leaves, and stems. The fruiting bodies…
A Case of the Missing Microbes
Most animals depend on their gut microbes for digestive help. The caterpillar, however, seems to lack resident gut microbes all together. By characterizing the microbial composition across 124 species of caterpillars from North America and Costa Rica, Tobin Hammer and colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder found that caterpillars do not have microbial friends…
A Bacterium You Can See With the Naked Eye
It is commonly believed that bacteria are microscopic – stealthy and hidden from the naked eye. But the bacterium, Epulopiscium fishelsoni, is a microbial behemoth you can see with the human eye alone. First discovered in the intestines of a brown surgeonfish in the Red Sea in 1985, this giant bacterium was first classified as…