Microbial Population Biology

For tomorrow’s lecture, you might want to give this news article a quick read: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050074 It speaks of the controversies surrounding microbial bioprospecting efforts, esp. those of Venter et al. Another booklet that describes metagenomics and its goals and promises can be found here: http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/metagenomics_final.pdf The complete version of the report from the National Academy [...]

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Hi guys, You may wish to check out my friend Mike’s blog on why influenza virus may either evolve towards increased virulence or decreased virulence. http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2009/04/nonoptimal_virulence_and_avian_1.php Vc

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The Airborne Metagenome in an Indoor Urban Environment http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001862 All, please take this opportunity to read this and comment upon the science, either here on this blog or there, on the article itself!  I’m sure the authors would appreciate your thoughts.

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Gang, A reminder that, by next Tuesday, you are to find an article on the evolution of virulence that addresses this question using “population thinking.”  This means not the mechanisms that underlie one strain’s methods of being virulent, but rather why various alternatives exist, or how they interplay with variation among hosts, etc. I look [...]

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Hi guys, a reminder for you to comment on the article of Greg Velicer’s that you chose to read.  We’d all appreciate reading what you learned, what you think of the experiment, what more you’d like to know, any criticisms, etc. Also, for today’s lecture on how one can find the underlying genetic mechanisms of [...]

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In realizing that the amount of data you have to analyze is substantial, and that the goals of the analysis are not totally clear, please: 1. Analyze your data and only the group to the right of you on the spreadsheet.  If you’re last, also do the first group. 2. The experimental design involved two [...]

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