I’m hanging out at the park while my preschooler blows bubbles or plays in the sandbox with his friends. The sun begins setting and I’m beginning to notice the prick and the itching that arises on my skin. Everyone is having a fun time, unbothered by those pesky mosquitoes swarming around. Why am I the…
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the US is getting a new active ingredient for sunscreen. The FDA just approved the broad spectrum UV filter, bemotrizinol, after beginning the approval process over 20 years ago. The UV filter has been used in Europe for decades but because the FDA regulates sunscreen as a…
A paper recently came out in Cell Host & Microbe about how the microbes in our saliva and gut – like Rothia and Staphylococcus species – can degrade peanut allergens and reduce the severity of anaphylaxis. The researchers confirmed this with in vitro tests and in mice. Mice treated with the bacteria had milder reactions…
During pregnancy, a person’s body undergoes a lot of changes – hormone fluctuations, morning sickness, loosening joints and ligaments, and well, the obvious: growing a mini human. As a microbiologist, I’ve wondered about the microbiome. What changes have occurred in the vaginal microbiome? What do these changes mean? And can the vaginal microbiome be predictive…
For decades, the notion that bacteria living on our bodies outnumbered human cells 10 to 1 was popular among microbiologists and the public. Turns out, this estimation is wrong. In 2016, Ron Sender, Shai Fuchs, and Ron Milo from the Weizmann Institute examined the origins of this estimation and found that the ratio is actually…