Skin bacteria regulate the immune response

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Disease, Mammals

Tags

Bacteria, biology, Complement system, Health, Immune system, microbes, microbiome, Mouse, Popular science, science

The skin is one of our body’s first lines of defense, but it’s also home to a rich community of microbes — the skin microbiome. These bacteria are important in protecting us from pathogens; changes in the skin microbiome are linked with conditions ranging from dermatitis to psoriasis. In a paper published this month in the journal PNAS, a team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania showed that these bacteria don’t just live on our skin, but also play a role in regulating our immune response. Continue reading →

Found while foraging (September 23, 2013)

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by sedeer in Foraging

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Accumulating Glitches, biology, links, microbiome, music, Popular science, science, science and society, Science communication, Science in Society, Scitable, sexism, Species, street art, video, World War Z

It’s been a while since my last Found while foraging. I guess I’ve been busy for the past few months and these posts have somehow fallen by the wayside. They seem to be popular, though, so I’ll make an effort to keep them up and post link collections more regularly. I’m also happy to get interesting links from readers, so send me anything you think is interesting and worth sharing. And as always, though, feel free to add more links in the comments!
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Found while foraging (July 3, 2013)

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by sedeer in Foraging

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Accumulating Glitches, biology, fungus, links, microbiome, Popular science, science, science and society, Science in Society, Scitable, sexism, street art, video

I’m offline this week as I’ve retreated to one of my favourite places in the world for a holiday. I was too busy to prepare a post before leaving, but fortunately it’s about time for another Found while foraging. Hopefully this post will be automatically published on Wednesday while I’m happily reading in front of a fire in a lovely cottage unburdened by the trappings of modernity — power, plumbing, and internet. I’ve never pre-scheduled a post for publication before, so I hope it works. I won’t link to many Scitable posts this time, but do pop over and have a look anyway; there’s some great stuff on there. As always, though, feel free to add more links in the comments!
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Sex, hormones, and the microbiome

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Development, Mammals

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Autoimmune disease, Bacteria, biology, Diabetes mellitus type 1, Gut flora, Health, microbes, microbiome, Popular science, science

The microbiome — the kilogram of microbes that each of us carries around — has been shown to be involved in everything from obesity and type 2 diabetes to behaviour and sexual preferences. The composition and effects of the microbiome are very active areas of research, producing results which have challenged the way we think about the evolution and interactions of organisms, including ourselves. In a paper recently published in the journal Science, researchers showed for the first time that the make up of the microbiome differs between the sexes, linking these differences to changes in hormone levels and disease resistance.
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The viruses that infect the bacteria that live in your gut

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Humans

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bacteria, bacteriophage, biology, gut bacteria, Gut flora, Human, microbes, microbiome, phage, Popular science, Prophage, science, virus

Your body has ten times more bacterial cells than human cells containing 150 times as much genetic material. I’ve written several posts about how our gut bacteria, the microbiome, can influence the development of allergies, obesity and type-2 diabetes. We’ve only recently started studying the microbiome and there’s still a lot to learn; it’s quite an active area of research. For example, just last year scientists discovered that individuals could be divided into three groups based on the composition of their microbiome, but new research has cast doubt on that idea. And yet, like a matryoshka doll, our biology has still another surprise in store for us: wherever bacteria are found, there are viruses which infect them. As we learn more about the microbiome and its implications, some scientists have turned their attention to the the viral microbiome, the viruses that prey on our gut bacteria and shape their community. Continue reading →

Gut bacteria may cause diabetes

13 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Mammals

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

animals, biology, diabetes, Education, Health, Immune response, insulin, microbes, microbiome, Mouse, Popular science, science, TLR2

According to a recent study, your chances of developing adult onset diabetes may depend on what kind of bacteria are living in your gut. It’s been known for some time that type 2 diabetes can be caused by a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors; over the past few years, it’s become clear that these factors somehow interact with the microbiome, but the nature of this interaction and the microbiome’s role in determining susceptibility to diabetes hasn’t been properly explored. Last year a team of scientists from Brazil published results showing that changes in the community composition could completely reverse the effect of genetic factors.
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