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Tripartate symbioses with fungi
Ants, fungi, and bacteria I have to admit that I am fascinated by co-evolution of symbiotic and mutalistic systems. A review by Richard Robinson gives an overview. A great example is the mutalism...
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Experimental cooperative evolution
A paper in Nature this week describes how a few mutations can alter the interactions between species in a biofilm from competitive to cooperative system. This is a great study that goes from start to...
View ArticleGut check
Ever wonder what goes on in a cow’s multi-chambered stomach? Probably not. I did think about it a little more after a trip to a teaching farm during grad school where we saw a cow with a fistula. This...
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Social Slime Mold
Slime molds are interesting organisms that receive surprisingly little attention. Take the case of Dictyostelium discoideum, a single-celled amoeba that, when starved, will aggregate with other D....
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Melaninized fungi use ionizing radiation for energy
A recent paper in PLoS One entitled Ionizing Radiation Changes the Electronic Properties of Melanin and Enhances the Growth of Melanized Fungi describes some pretty amazing results that have gotten...
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Tracking honeybee decline
An early access to article in Science A Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (direct link since DOI is not updated yet) using the current favorite buzzword,...
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Some links
I’ve been too busy to post much these last few days, but here are a few links to some papers I found interesting in my recent browsing. FOLy: an integrated database for the classification and...
View ArticlePhytophthora work highlighted
A link to the story about Matteo Garbelotto‘s work on Phytophthora ramorum and showing that the source in California is likely from ornamentals from a nursery. The work is to appear soon in Molecular...
View ArticleBats beware of white nose
An outbreak of a fungal infection called “white-nose syndrome” is killing bats in the Northeastern US. This New Scientist article mentions the outbreak briefly and an NPR story and recent Boston Globe...
View ArticleNew species of Cryptococcus found in seawater
A paper in IJSEM describes a new species in the Cryptococcus basidiomycete yeast lineage. The name is proposed as Cryptococcus keelungensis sp. nov. for a strain isolated from the sea surface...
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Origins and evolution of pathogens
An article in PLoS Pathogens by Morris et al describe a hypothesis about the evolution and origins of plant pathogens applying the parallel theories to the emergence of medically relevant pathogens....
View ArticleStill time to sign up for EMBO Comparative Genomics meeting
[via Teun Boekhout] This year looks like another great lineup of speakers for the EMBO Comparative Genomics of Microorganisms: ‘Understanding the Complexity of Diversity’ 15-20 Oct 2011 Sant Feliu de...
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Fear of Fungi!
The cover of Nature today highlights an article from Matthew Fisher and colleagues on the major impact that Fungi as emerging infectious diseases are playing on threatening diversity of ecosystems and...
View ArticleFew fungi+host papers
Three papers on some cool fungi that interact with hosts and I recommend them for a good read. One is coverage of by Ed Yong on rice blast (Magnaporthae orzyae) on paper from Nick Talbot and Gero...
View ArticleNSF Poststdoc opportunity for Research using biological collections
Earlier this year the NSF released a postdoc opportunity for research to use Biological Collections. In particular these can be strain collections and stock collections. The US Culture Collection...
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