Microbiologist, Bacterial biomineralization, Antimicrobial resistance, Biofilms and so on. Bacillus aficionado, Alum @Hacettepe1967 // Defend science, resist ignorance
Ankara/New York/Tel Aviv
https://twitter.com/mervetepePhD
https://post.news/@/mervetepephd
A Fungus that Reduces Methane Emissions
Noteworthy — We face unprecedented rising global temperatures, a crisis driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels. But other sectors, like the livestock industry, also contribute by producing large amounts of greenhouse gases.
Read more > https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2025/03/a-fungus-that-reduces-methane-emissions.html
#microbiology
In the US there is a flu epidemic as well. Fortunately, with low COVID-19 and RSV.
It is comparable with some of the heavy flu epidemics, such as 2010 and 2017/18, it is one that seems to happen around every decade. Vaccination levels unfortunately low.
This is seasonal flu, not the new birdflu.
If you are upset about the devastating cuts to science, remember to call your elected officials and let them know about it.
Regardless of if they are red or blue, supportive of science or not, they all track calls. Calls matter. Do it!
Find your elected officials: www.usa.gov/elected-officials
How to Respond to Misinformation From the Anti-Vaccine Movement
Vaccines are one of the most crucial life-saving medical interventions. Perplexingly, they court more public controversy than their objectively excellent safety profile warrants.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00469580231155723
1/10
'The emerging sewage crisis is only one of many disasters we can expect as the planet continues to warm, and nowhere near the top of the list. But it seems to me to offer an especially graphic illustration of two points. First, the damage from climate change is likely to be more severe than even pessimists have tended to believe. Second, mitigation and adjustment — which are going to be necessary, because we’d still be headed for major effects of climate change even if we took immediate action to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions — will probably be far more difficult, as a political matter, than it should be.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/27/opinion/climate-change.html
Histological and Ultrastructural Changes in Lungs One
Year Post Asymptomatic or Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection:
Evaluating the Potential for Active Virus Presence
It is tiresome, these low impact papers being abused to make exaggerated claims.
http://www.intjmorphol.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Art_23_423_2024.pdf
1/3
"Masks don't work"
"Vaccines don't work"
"Distancing doesn't work"
(They do. Just imperfectly).
I've heard so many of these types of comments over the past 3 years, I thought it was time to write a bit about how one big aspect of infection is a numbers game. /1
/2 When we think of it that way--what is the number of microbes needed to cause an infection?--we can think about how masks, vaccines, distancing, ventilation, hand hygiene, and more can collectively reduce our exposure.
/3 In the best cases, these interventions reduce the dose of the microbe to a number too low to cause infection. This is the basis of the "swiss cheese" layering defense that was touted early on, and is still important today. My article @ Quanta discusses this. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-many-microbes-does-it-take-to-make-you-sick-20230927/
A very interesting piece of work. And unsurprisingly in #academia "praise" in #PeerReview was low across the board! 😔 #academicchatter @academicchatter @PLOSBiology
https://fediscience.org/@PLOSBiology/110977783404725065
City of Hope in Duarte, California, has maintained masking requirements, and this has prevented hospital-acquired #COVID19 there entirely, according to Vijay Trisal, MD, chief medical officer at City of Hope.
“Our policies enabled us to achieve zero nosocomial infections, zero outbreaks.”
Will climate change amplify epidemics and give rise to pandemics
#climatechange #pandemic #virus #science
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk4500
Listeria is not fun:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/us/tacoma-milkshake-listeria-deaths
Happy (or not?) #MicroscopyMonday!
I made a chart out of all the amoeba faces I've found to put on the lab fridge. Unfortunately, happy faces are not an observable phenotype for Naegleria.
There are usually more things that we can do. Which opportunities and invitations should we pursue.
I give an answer based on opportunities offering creative potential.
https://matthiasrillig.substack.com/p/which-opportunities-invitations-for
Wonderful interview with the incredible @VirusesImmunity Completely agree we are not done with covid- long covid must be recognised by our political leaders and treatments and research funded and we need a plan to safely live with covid. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/27/immunologist-akiko-iwasaki-we-are-not-done-with-covid-not-even-close?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I study #immune #evolution, including host - #pathogen interactions. My work has focused on #antimicrobial #defense #peptides which are like #antibiotics coded by the #genome . A key focus is #immunity-#microbiome interactions 🦠
New PP: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.23.521774
I also talk ethical publishing and advancing the conversation on #preprint, #openscience, and #academicchatter.
We are #hiring postdoctoral researchers, technicians, and interns for multiple research projects, including:
-How "enabler" mutations drive the evolution of #antimicrobialresistance
-Microbiome of tracheobronchitis
-Advancing our EvolvingSTEM (http://evolvingstem.org) lab-based educational program
-Using new methods for high-throughput genomics and bioinformatics
The microbiology and evolutionary biology communities in #pittsburgh are fantastic, join us!
