BacterioFiles 349 - Magnet Microbes Make Millivolts

Magnetotactic bacteria with
magnetosome chains visible
From: Edouard Alphandéry
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2014.00005

This episode: Bacteria that contain tiny magnets can generate an electric current!

Download Episode (6.8 MB, 7.4 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Mamastrovirus 2

Journal Paper:
Smit B.A., Van Zyl E., Joubert J.J., Meyer W., Prévéral S., Lefèvre C.T., Venter S.N. 2018. Magnetotactic bacteria used to generate electricity based on Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction. Lett Appl Microbiol 66:362–367.

Other interesting stories:

• Deep-sea fangly fishes have tight relationship with their light-producing bacteria

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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Episode outline:

BacterioFiles 328 - Focused Phages Fight Films

Bacteriophages
By Sherwood Casjens,Elaine Lenk
CC BY-SA 3.0

This episode: Phages bound to magnetic nanoparticles can be guided and pulled toward their target, penetrating biofilms to kill harmful microbes!

Download Episode (9.6 MB, 10.4 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Veillonella alcalescens

News item

Journal Paper:
Li L-L, Yu P, Wang X, Yu S-S, Mathieu J, Yu H-Q, Alvarez PJJ. 2017. Enhanced biofilm penetration for microbial control by polyvalent phages conjugated with magnetic colloidal nanoparticle clusters (CNCs). Environ Sci Nano 4:1817–1826.

Other interesting stories:

Social group membership affects lemur gut microbes

Viruses can transfer genes between kingdoms

Trace gases in atmosphere enough to support microbes in Antarctica

Magnetic bacteria can swim even against the current

Engineered bacteria produce internal scaffolds for better biotech productions

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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Episode outline:

BacterioFiles 269 - Magnetic Microbes Maim MRSA

Magnetotactic bacteria with

magnetosome chains visible

From: Edouard Alphandéry,

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol,

DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2014.00005

This episode: Killing pathogens by attaching magnetotactic bacteria to them and then raising the heat with magnetic fields!
Download Episode (10.6 MB, 11.6 minutes)

Show notes:
News item

Journal Paper:
Chen C, Chen L, Yi Y, Chen C, Wu L-F, Song T. 2016. Killing of Staphylococcus aureus via Magnetic Hyperthermia Mediated by Magnetotactic Bacteria. Appl Environ Microbiol 82:2219–2226.

Other interesting stories:

Plant root symbiont that degrades plastic pollutants (paper)

Phages can kill pathogens in gut without affecting other microbes (paper)

Mouth bacteria could inhibit other cavity-forming microbes (paper)

Plant accepts help from fungus only when necessary

Bacteria seem involved in forming deposits of platinum metals

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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BacterioFiles 268 - Sophisticated Cyanobacterium Sight

Synechocystis cells
under electron microscope
Credit: Conrad Mullineaux

This episode: Spherical cyanobacterium Synechocystis acts like a tiny eyeball in sensing light, allowing cells to move closer to light sources!
Download Episode (9.7 MB, 10.6 minutes)

Show notes:
News item

Video 1: Synechocystis cells moving toward light sources
Video 2: Synechocystis cells avoiding point of bright light on surface

Journal Paper:
Schuergers N, Lenn T, Kampmann R, Meissner MV, Esteves T, Temerinac-Ott M, Korvink JG, Lowe AR, Mullineaux CW, Wilde A. 2016. Cyanobacteria use micro-optics to sense light direction. eLife 5:e12620.

Other interesting stories:

Discovering how to get more biofuels out of algae

Bacteria could help prevent cavities

Probiotic carrying virus in its genome fights pathogens better than without virus (paper)

Giving probiotic to pregnant mice influences immune system of babies (paper)

Combined phage and probiotics could treat E. coli infections (paper)

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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BacterioFiles 266 - Solar Cyborg Cells Capture Carbon

Cells of Moorella thermoacetica
forming spores in culture

This episode: Adding exotic elements to convert spore-forming bacteria into light-capturing cyborgs that convert carbon dioxide into useful chemicals!
Download Episode (9.7 MB, 10.5 minutes)

Show notes:
News item 1/News item 2

Journal Paper:
Sakimoto KK, Wong AB, Yang P. 2016. Self-photosensitization of nonphotosynthetic bacteria for solar-to-chemical production. Science 351:74–77.

Other interesting stories:

Unusual archaeal virus sorta looks like Ebola (paper)

Understanding how probiotics could prevent cancer in mice (paper)

Giant viruses have immune system against virophages

Using evolution to help yeast produce more ethanol from biomass (paper)

Remnants of viruses in our DNA helps us fight off infections

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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BacterioFiles 209 - Myxococcus Menace Motivates Megastructures

Megastructure
(Müller et al. 2015)

This episode: Microbial predators in soil cause microbial prey to build fortifications!

Download Episode (8.8 MB, 9.5 minutes)

Show notes:
Journal Paper

Other interesting stories:

Using bacteria to produce adhesives that shellfish use underwater

Maintaining gut community may be important for surviving intensive care

Human gut might actually have some useful bacteria for biofuels too

Termites use mixture of fungal and bacterial symbionts

Bacteria help seeds sprout faster

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

BacterioFiles 191 - Coats Compose Current Conduits

Nanowires forming (Pirbadian, Fig 5)

This episode: Bacterial nanowires are made of the cells' outer membranes!

Download Episode (9.75 MB, 10.6 minutes)

Show notes:
News item/Journal Paper

Other interesting stories:

Algae in low light can switch quantum light harvesting on or off

Fecal transplants continue to seem like a great treatment for gut community imbalance

Good gut microbe community seems important for survival after stem cell transplant

Microbes on ocean plastic could have good and bad effects

Bacteria could help inhibit pathogens of bees and bats

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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BacterioFiles 175 - Bacteria Build Better Biofilms

This episode: Engineered bacteria can be made to produce many different useful kinds of biofilm!

Download Episode (10.5 MB, 11.5 minutes)

Show notes:
News item 1/News item 2/Journal Paper

Other interesting stories:

Some kinds of mouth fungi may keep other bad ones in check

Fossilized viruses found in fossilized bacteria

Breastfeeding is important for a healthy gut community

Studying how microbes in water treatment remove contaminating chemicals (paper)

Bacteria break down cocoa into more healthy stuff

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

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This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

BacterioFiles Micro Edition 92 - Microbes Make Miniature Magnets

This episode: Bacterial enzymes are good for making nanomagnets for computers!

Download Episode (2.6 MB, 2.75 minutes)
Transcript

Show notes:
News item 1/News item 2/Journal Paper

Other interesting stories:
**Tobacco virus may be helpful for prevention of Parkinson's
**Using microbes to sense toxic compounds
**Gut bacterial exposure early in life affects immunity
**Robot synchrony technique inspired by bacterial signalling
**Bacterial diets are diverse and interesting

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening!

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BacterioFiles Micro Edition 22 - Shocking Shewanella

This episode: Bacteria form electric nanowires!

Download Episode (3 MB, 3 minutes)

Show notes:
News items: 1/2/Journal paper

Other interesting stories:
**Some strains of Staph aureus weaken other bad strains
**Tiny sea creatures could affect course of hurricanes
**All about baking and bacteria
**Studying brewing bacteria
**Bacteria could inhibit fungal diseases

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening!

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This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

BacterioFiles Episode 12

In this show, I report on four exciting stories: interesting organisms found living in acid, purple bacteria's efficiency in capturing light, a cocaine overdose treatment from bacteria, and comparing E. coli to Linux.

(Image credit: Yale, PNAS)


Download Episode (13.3 MB, 14.6 minutes)

Download Sections:
Intro
Current Event
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Story 4
Ending Comments

Show notes:
Current Event: News item 1/News item 2/News item 3
Story 1: News item/Journal paper
Story 2: News item/Journal Paper
Story 3: News item/Journal Paper
Story 4: News item 1/News item 2/Journal Paper

Other interesting stories:
**Fear of Earthly microbes contaminating Mars
**Where oil comes from
**Fossils on Earth give hints about finding Martian life
**How probiotics are used more than they are known to work
**Fighting brain cancer with viruses
**A company that makes "solar panels" filled with microbes
**How soil microbes shouldn't be as bad for global warming as was thought
**How gut microbes affect bowel health
**A plant virus that now infects vertebrate animals
**Probiotics help premature infants
**How some marine bacteria can use sunlight too
**How gut microbes can affect celiac disease

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter, MicrobeWorld, or SciencePodcasters.org

This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.

Awesome Microbe Video, and Virus Podcast

Watch Man-Controlled Bacteria Build A Nanoscale Pyramid



Here's a link to an article on it.
---------------
Also, if you want to listen to an incredibly interesting podcast about viruses, go here:

Meet the Scientist: Curtis Suttle - It's a Virus World and We Just Live On It

It includes such tidbits as "If all the viruses in the ocean were placed end to end, they would stretch 7 million light years." Wow.
---------------
Episode 9 comes out next weekend. Stay tuned.

BacterioFiles Episode 4

In this show, I report on four exciting stories: using slime molds to design networks, bacteria working together to reduce environmental damage, a stomach germ that helps prevent tuberculosis, and bacterial colonies that flash in synchrony.

Download Episode (10 MB, 11 minutes)

Download Sections:
Intro
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Story 4
Ending Comments

Show notes:
Story 1: News item/Journal paper
Story 2: News item/Journal paper
Story 3: News item/Journal paper
Story 4: News item/Journal paper

Nature video for story 4:


Other interesting stories:
**Bacteria detoxify selenium in soil
**Scientists find heat-loving organisms in Arctic waters and trace them to their probable origins
**Distillery plans to use bacteria to digest yeasty waste, using the resulting methane to produce electricity (or power local cars), ultimately reducing costs
**Scientists find that eating lots of apples may lead to more good bacteria in the gut
**Researchers discover that some kinds of bacteria have membrane-bound internal structures, which were once thought to only exist in eukaryotes (like animals and plants)
**Development of a potential probiotic treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes

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BacterioFiles Episode 2

In this show, I report on three exciting stories plus one more: bacteria turning tiny gears, a way bacteria can produce electricity, how microbe exposure early in life could protect the heart, and how bacteria could prevent mosquito-borne diseases.

Download Episode (12 MB, 13.5 minutes)

Download Sections:
Intro
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Story 4
Ending Comments

Show notes:
Story 1: News item/Journal paper/Videos
Story 2: News item/Journal paper
Story 3: News item/Journal paper
Story 4: News item/Journal paper


Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe at iTunes

This show features music from Mevio's podsafe Music Alley.