When commemorating our troops, doctors and nurses this Anzac Day, consider also tipping your hat to the discovery of bacteriophages. In the post-antibiotic era, our health might just depend on them.
In us, on us and all around us.
Microbes image via www.shutterstock.com.
The federal government is tackling antimicrobial resistance with a ‘One Health’ approach. But what is One Health and what can it offer that other approaches haven’t?
Do we contain the most elaborate set of instructions?
Genome image via www.shutterstock.com.
Karin Sauer, Binghamton University, State University of New York
The vast majority of the bacteria that surround us are not free-floating but prefer to band together in cooperative communities called biofilms. How do biofilms form and cooperate?
You couldn’t enjoy cheese like this without the intervention of micro-organisms.
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One common terrestrial bacterium has been found to grow in the microgravity of the International Space Station than on Earth, although it remains a mystery why.
Our personal collection of microbes is vital for gut health - but new research shows that large-scale analysis of our ‘microbiomes’ can show if a population is fat or lean. The answer is in sewage.
Gut bacteria can manufacture special proteins that are very similar to hunger-regulating hormones.
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We’ve long known that that the gut is responsible for digesting food and expelling the waste. More recently, we realised the gut has many more important functions and acts a type of mini-brain, affecting…
You can never be too safe.
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Human skin is a garden of microbes which is home to about 1,000 bacterial species. Most are benign but some invade the skin and cause illness – and of these, antibiotic resistant bacteria are particularly…
Akshat Rathi, The Conversation e Declan Perry, The Conversation
Trillions of microbes live in and on our body. We don’t yet fully understand how these microbial ecosystems develop or the full extent to which they influence our health. Some provide essential nutrients…
Even bacteria get sick.
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Akshat Rathi, The Conversation e Declan Perry, The Conversation
Bacterial diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Most of these bacteria were benign at some point in their evolutionary past, and we don’t always understand what turned them into disease-causing…
The make up of a person’s gut bacteria changes when they develop Crohn’s disease.
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New links between the bacteria in your gut and disease are being made almost daily. We know, for instance, that the microbial communities residing in your intestines have a role in your mood and levels…
There is no denying that humans think sex is important, but it also matters for microbes. Sex allows genes from two parents to be mixed, leading to new combinations of genes in the offspring. In the past…
As the trees go, so do the microbes.
Jorge Rodrigues
Beneath the lush forests of the Amazon is a whole different level of diversity that new research says may be one of the keys to understanding how to stem the global impacts of deforestation. The Amazon…
The trillions of bacteria in your gut can affect your brain – psychologically and physically.
Helga Weber
Striking new evidence indicates that the gut microbiome, the ecological community of microorganisms that share our body, has a huge effect on brain function – much larger than we thought. It has long been…