Microbe Talk

Anyone who’s been enjoying the sun on a nice summers evening knows the dreaded whine made by mosquitoes on the hunt for a meal. In recent years mosquitoes have been appearing in the news more and more due outbreaks of diseases such as dengue and zika. As if getting bitten by a mosquito wasn’t bad enough, if it is carrying the arbovirus, the saliva causing the annoying itchy bumps is actually helpi...

MicroNews is the sister series of our podcast Microbe Talk, where we discuss some of the times microbiology has been in the news during the past month. In this episode, Matt and Laura discuss the differences in microbial diversity in rural and urban areas, climate change and its effect on otters and a piece of new research investigating how an emerging virus might affect frogs. Links to the news s...

In this month’s episode of the podcast, Laura speaks with two experts on the relationship with certain microbes and cancer: Professor Paul Farrell, of Imperial College London, and Dr Karen Robinson, from the University of Nottingham. Paul Farrell: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/p.farrell Karen Robinson: https://nddcbru.org.uk/team/dr-karen-robinson Find out more about the relationship between E...

In 2018, influenza made headlines, with the 2017/18 flu season heralded on of the 'worst ever' for the National Health Service with the highest number of influenza-related hospital admissions since 2010. This flu season has been markedly different. But why is there so much variation? This month, we spoke with Dr John McCauley, Director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Centre for Re...

Malawi, in Sub-Saharan Africa, has the highest incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in the world. Nearly all cases of cervical cancer are caused by human papillomavirus, or HPV. Earlier this year, the Microbiology Society funded one of our members, Dr Ramya Bhatia, to travel to Malawi as part of a research collaboration between Nkhoma Hospital and the University of Edinburgh. In this podcast...

This month, we’re bringing you a real highlight from our Annual Conference in Edinburgh: a live discussion about the state of microbiome research. A panel of experts gave their views on whether microbiome research is an opportunity, or whether it’s been over-hyped. It was a really lively event with a great audience, and it was chaired by our very own Dr Benjamin Thompson. Panelists: Prof Julian Ma...

Have you ever wondered about the kinds of microbes that are present in your kitchen? In the fruit bowl or the fridge, on your chopping boards or cleaning cloths? Good Germs Bad Germs is a citizen science project from the University of Oxford, allowing people to experiment on the microbial life in their kitchens and to visualise the results. This month, we went to Oxford to visit one of the househo...

What’s it like to travel right down to the bottom of the ocean? Deep sea microbiologist Julie Huber should know. Her group, at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, USA, is trying to uncover more about the microbes living in the deepest darkest depths of the ocean. But that’s not all – there are even microbes living thousands of metres beneath the ocean floor itself, within the rocks...