From the point of view of an intracellular bacteria, the human body really is no more than just a habitat in which they must grow and thrive. While this particular habitat might have stable internal conditions, and less competition than the big open world, it has its disadvantages in continuous attacks from the immune system, and the [...]

Although it usually only gets talked about when it starts causing problems, cholesterol is an important molecule to have in the body, as it is a component of cell membranes. The major component of cell membranes is a molecule called a phospholipid; an inorganic phosphate molecule joined onto lipid tails. Lots of these phospholipids all [...]

There are various different ways that pathogenic bacteria can damage and kill human cells, but one of the most common is by the production of toxic molecules. These small molecules are made inside the bacterial cell, the protein chain built using the DNA template and then often modified within the cell before being secreted directly [...]

Thursday 26th July saw the launch of SciLogs.com, a new English language science blog network. SciLogs.com, the brand-new home for Nature Network bloggers, forms part of the SciLogs international collection of blogs which already exist in German, Spanish and Dutch. To celebrate this addition to the NPG science blogging family, some of the NPG blogs are publishing posts focusing on “Beginnings”. Participating in this cross-network blogging festival is nature.com’s Soapbox Science blog, Scitable’s Student [...]

Last weeks post on the changing composition of bacteria in the vagina generated a lot of interest, and as there’s been quite a of talk about the human microbiome (all the bacteria that live on the human body) at the moment I thought I’d stick with the theme. This weeks post is about how bacteria [...]

In multicellular organisms it is essential that every cell behaves and does the job it was produced to perform. The survival of a multicellular organism depends on this  - every cell in your body is tightly controlled in terms of how big it can grow (fairly big), when it can reproduce (almost never) and what [...]

A while ago, I wrote about how Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers and are implicated in certain stomach cancers, cause the cells of the stomach wall to die. H. pylori kills cells very sneakily, by releasing a chemical that causes them to commit suicide. It turns out that this is not the [...]

Just to let you know – the latest MolBio carnival is out! The bacteria that cause Tuberculosis are nasty little beasts. The white blood cells that clear infection in your body work by ingesting bacteria and then breaking them up, and the TB escapes this by letting itself get ingested and then sitting inside your [...]

The inside of the human body is a bacteria-free zone. Bacteria are certainly within you, but they exist only in areas that have a direct channel to the outside world, such as the mouth, intestines and the surface of the skin. These areas are well protected by a layer of cells (epithilial cells) which form [...]

I’m doing a journal club presentation tomorrow, where I take a paper apart in front of my lab through the medium of powerpoint. It’s a nice short little paper but it does bring up some interesting points and also works as a prime example of a very common way that scientists go about exploring how [...]

The chicken pesto pasta on your plate is more than just tasty fuel to keep you going. The dish has carbohydrates, fats and proteins to be sure, but it also contains other nutrients and chemicals that send subtle cues and instructions to your cells. More and more researchers are arguing that to better grasp how [...]

The internet is full of re-jigged tunes where people force a narrative of scientific concepts into a recognizable song. We all know many of these can be painful to listen to (or watch if it is in video format). But today, I have one so well done, I can watch it over and over. I’ll [...]

Thursday 26th July saw the launch of SciLogs.com, a new English language science blog network. SciLogs.com, the brand-new home for Nature Network bloggers, forms part of the SciLogs international collection of blogs which already exist in German,Spanish and Dutch. To celebrate this addition to the NPG science blogging family,some of the NPG blogs are publishing posts focusing on “Beginnings”. Participating in this cross-network blogging festival [...]