African Sleeping Sickness gets its name from the sleep disturbances it causes. Awake in the night and asleep in the day. A bite from a tsetse fly can transmit Trypanosoma brucei, the parasite that causes African Sleeping Sickness. First come the fevers, headaches, and joint pain. Then weeks to months after the bite, the sleep…
Soybeans became widely popular in the last few decades. Low in fat, high in protein, a good substitute for meat, and sometimes fermented. This unassuming little bean has plenty of creative uses. Unfermented types of soy products include tofu, soymilk and in its purest, unprocessed form, edamame. Microbes transform soybeans into products as different as…
Erica’s foray into science didn’t specifically begin with microbiology. Her father worked at NASA and while accompanying him to work on “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” every year, she’s tried all sorts of things, even astronaut ice cream. She’s read a lot about science and her interest grew. “The Hot Zone especially scared the…
Bacteria were once thought of as solitary individual organisms. We are finding out more and more that they behave quite contrary to this long-time perception. Bacteria form complex three-dimensional communities called biofilms. In biofilms, cells stick to each other and are encased in a sticky, slimy matrix proteins and sugars. It has been known for…
Updated May 22, 2021. We have all heard the horrifying tales of incurable bacterial infections due to antibiotic resistance. But why don’t we see pathogens becoming resistant to vaccines? Intuitively, it seems that vaccines, like antibiotics, put selective pressure on pathogens. The selective force should drive the evolution of vaccine resistance, right? David Kennedy and…