I’m a little sad to be writing this but its come to that point. I have to leave the Scientific American network. I haven’t been asked to leave (as I thought I would) or lost interest in blogging, I just simply can not dedicate the time to do it properly and to a standard that I set [...]

“Probiotics” are an enormous field and even bigger market but and as interesting as they are an, arguably, more interesting –biotic is starting to gain traction as more innovative researchers explore its possibilities. This is the field of “designer probiotics”. The central idea is this, certain pathogenic bacteria (and I am speaking exclusively within the [...]

Meliodosis is currently poking its head above the surface in Australia and is causing a few problems. This nasty little disease is caused by the bacterial species with my favorite name, Burkholderia pseudomallei.   B. pseudomallei is a soil and water dwelling gram negative organism that spends most of its time not doing much, but, [...]

This is re-posted from my old blog because it has been getting a few hits lately. My wife is a nurse and she sees some properly interesting medicine at times. A little while ago she told about this doosey of a cancer and I couldn’t help but write about it. Pseudomyxoma peritonei is a relatively [...]

As part of my job at RiAus I get asked to write the occasional blog about an upcoming event. I wrote this for an event that occured last week about fractal geometry with the amazing Prof. Michael Barnsley. It was a great event and my blog post was just a little teaser for it. Only real short [...]

Honey is awesome. I’ve found its best consumed when combined with nougat and wrapped in dark chocolate but I digress. Honey also has some pretty amazing properties, it’s broadly antimicrobial and seemingly able to promote healing. My Nan would always give me a spoonful of honey alongside other meds when I had colds and flus [...]

I am so super busy at the moment because someone decided, a long time ago, that Adelaide should do all of the things in March. We have car races, Fringe festivals, multi-arts festivals, my wife’s birthday   It’s because of this I am worked to the bone as the organisation I work for/with possess a [...]

A week or so ago I was asked to be interviewed for a videoblog called FiSTChat. I tossed it around my head as to whether or not I should do it but then I remembered it is my boss’s videoblog and so I said yes immediately. I’ve embedded it below but you should head over [...]

In the previous two posts we have established how the microbiome is established and then the pressures the host puts on it to maintain a balance between the required functions and the commensal bacteria providing them. In this post I want to look a little deeper at what happens if this balance is disturbed or [...]

In the last post I talked about babies eating poo how babies develop a gut flora. In this post I wanted to look at how that flora matures into adulthood. As a baby grows it interacts with its environment and after about a year an infant’s flora will resemble their parent’s. This becomes particularly important [...]