The lethal poison Ricin (best known as a weapon of bioterrorism), Diphtheria …
The lethal poison Ricin (best known as a weapon of bioterrorism), Diphtheria toxin (the causative agent of a highly contagious bacterial disease), and the widely used antibiotic tetracycline have one thing in common: They specifically target the cell’s translational apparatus and disrupt protein synthesis. In this course, we will explore the mechanisms of action of toxins and antibiotics, their roles in everyday medicine, and the emergence and spread of drug resistance. We will also discuss the identification of new drug targets and how we can manipulate the protein synthesis machinery to provide powerful tools for protein engineering and potential new treatments for patients with devastating diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. This course is one of many Advanced Undergraduate Seminars offered by the Biology Department at MIT. These seminars are tailored for students with an interest in using primary research literature to discuss and learn about current biological research in a highly interactive setting. Many instructors of the Advanced Undergraduate Seminars are postdoctoral scientists with a strong interest in teaching.
In this new video we look at the basics of bacteria. We …
In this new video we look at the basics of bacteria. We look at their classifications, sizes, shapes and how they reproduce. This video is intended to be a primer on bacteria. We will go into more details as we progress in this series. -------------- Visit Us On The Internet: -YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/mrfordsclass -Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrfordsclass -Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrfordsclasslearning -Google+: https://plus.google.com/+mrfordsclass/posts -Instagram: http://instagram.com/mrfordsclasslearning
This is a Introduction to microbiology course. The content of this module …
This is a Introduction to microbiology course. The content of this module is syllabus as well as powerpoint slides presentation, using OpenStax Microbiology textbook. Content uploaded by Joanna Gray. All content created by Jaleh E. Jalili
Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is …
Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.
Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is …
Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Coral reefs are known to partner with a number of organisms for survival. including nitrogen-fixing microbes known as diazotrophs. A new study examined how these and other microbes vary among corals of different species and from different parts of the world— namely, Hawai’i, Curaçao, and Australia. The microbial makeup of the coral microbiome was found to vary with coral species, location, and ecological life history. For example, while diazotrophs of the order Rhizobiales were common to all coral microbiomes, they were 8 times as abundant in corals from Hawai’i than in corals from Curaçao or Australia. Interestingly, however, the factor contributing to the biggest differences in community structure was coral shape. Plate-like, branching, and solitary corals, for instance, showed communities that were genetically distinct from boulder-like corals. These findings confirm the known effects of coral shape and size on attributes such as light and food capture, gas exchange, and metabolism..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This 10-minute video lesson looks at the beginnings of life on Earth. …
This 10-minute video lesson looks at the beginnings of life on Earth. Life and photosynthesis start to thrive in the Archean Eon. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 39 of 85]
This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey tells the story of …
This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey tells the story of researcher Sir Alexander Fleming, whose luck and scientific reasoning led to the groundbreaking discovery of penicillin.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Prokaryotes are assumed to be the oldest existing life form on earth and are found in almost all ecosystems. Genome sequencing can provide a blueprint for the evolutionary and functional diversity of prokaryotes, but what proportion of bacteria and archaea on earth have actually had their genomes sequenced? A new study aimed to explore this basic question. By aligning the sequences released by the Earth Microbiome Project with 155,810 prokaryotic genomes from public databases, researchers found that the median proportions of the genome-sequenced cells and taxa in different biomes reached 38.1% and 18.8%. Due to a set of cosmopolitan OTUs that are found in multiple samples and preferentially sequenced, only 2.1% of the global prokaryotic taxa are represented by sequenced genomes, and most of the biomes were occupied by a few predominant taxa with a high relative abundance, while rarer taxa were less represented..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Wastewater treatment plants are a critical piece of infrastructure that depend on microbes, both resident and incoming. Incoming microbes can be beneficial but may include parasites that need to be removed. Resident microbes, meanwhile, help break down organic waste. While much is known about bacteria in wastewater treatment plants, eukaryotes are frequently overlooked. Recently, researchers examined the whole microbiome of 10 wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland. They utilized metagenomics to measure which microbes were present and metatranscriptomics to analyze their activity. Bacteria were the most numerous— but eukaryotes, particularly protists, showed the most activity, and there was a surprising number and range of active parasites, which were particularly prevalent in the inflow. Network analysis suggested predation by resident microbes likely helped remove parasites..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"The deepest parts of the world’s oceans hold many mysteries, one of which involves its tiniest residents. Tiny prokaryotes called Thaumarchaeota survive in the extreme environment of the deep oceans. While the metabolic functions of Thaumarchaeota that live in shallower depths are fairly well described, those that live in the deepest sea zone – hadal water – are less well known. Now, a new study provides insight into the metabolism and cellular adaptations of deep-sea Thaumarchaeota. Using metagenomics to evaluate seawater samples from the Mariana Trench, researchers found that Thaumarchaeota present in the hadal zone were distinct from those in shallower depths. Hadal zone Thaumarchaeota depended on genes involved in bioenergetics, including those horizontally transferred from other extremophiles, to survive, and their unique genetic makeup revealed the potential to import a wide range of organic compounds..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"The microbes found in topsoil are a vital part of the Earth’s ecology. While several recent studies have explored these microbiomes on a global scale, their data on sub-Saharan Africa was sparse, despite the looming threat of climate change to the region. To close this gap, researchers recently examined the microbial ecology of 810 sites across 9 sub-Saharan African countries. The topsoil microbiomes were shaped by a broad range of environmental factors, particularly pH, precipitation, and temperature, and each nation had a quantifiably distinct topsoil microbiome. Computer models based on the data also predicted how country-specific microbiomes might respond to climate change. In Kenya, for example, higher temperatures and lower rainfall could diminish microbial diversity, whereas in Benin, the predicted increase in precipitation is likely to boost fungal biodiversity..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"The interactions between viruses and prokaryotes play a key role in shaping microbiomes. However, little is known about the factors influencing host-virus interaction networks, especially when it comes to host factors. To close this gap, researchers constructed a host-provirus network out of over 7,000 species-level prokaryote genomes from many environments. Proviruses are virus genomes that have been integrated into the host genome, allowing researchers to detect them from available genomic datasets. Using this host-provirus network, the researchers then calculated the host interaction specialization, which quantifies how specialized a given host is in relation to the available interacting virus partners. Broadly, fast growing prokaryotes showed less virus specificity than slow growers. This negative growth rate-specialization relationship was widespread across the Earth’s microbiomes..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Oceans connect all life and affect climate worldwide, and interestingly, the ocean’s smallest residents have a huge role in this process. The ocean microbiota modulates global biogeochemical cycles, which influences energy balance in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the underlying factors structuring the ocean microbiota are unclear, and better understanding is needed to help combat the effects of global climate change. A recent study examined the ecological mechanisms shaping the smallest surface-ocean microbiota: prokaryotes and picoeukaryotes. Researchers identified patterns in DNA sequencing data collected by two global ocean expeditions, Malaspina-2010 and Tara Oceans. Their results showed that different ecological mechanisms affect prokaryotes vs. picoeukaryotes. While picoeukaryotes were largely structured by dispersal limitation, displaying higher differentiation between communities, prokaryotes were structured by a combination of temperature-driven selection, dispersal limitation and random drift..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Termites are one of the few animal lineages able to digest the most abundant biomolecule on earth, lignocellulose. Of the nine families of termites, all but one of them eat wood, with the last feeding on soil. While termites produce enzymes that break down lignocellulose, their gut microbes are still a critical part of the digestion process. But most termite gut microbiome research to date is based on research from wood-feeding or pest species of termites. So, a recent study examined the prokaryotic gut microbes from a sample of termite species that better represent the diversity of termites. The gut microbes possessed a similar set of carbohydrate and nitrogen metabolism genes across the termite phylogenetic tree. The proportions of these genes varied with the hosts’ diet and position on the phylogenetic tree. Surprisingly, the soil-feeding termites didn't even have unique microbial metabolic genes or pathways compared to wood-feeding species..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
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