Microflora
milhayser | July 30, 2012On ERV, Abbie Smith writes “Malaria kills 1.24 million people a year. Mostly babies under 5 years old.” Malaria, although carried by mosquitoes, is caused by a single-celled protist which infects the liver and goes on to parasitize red blood cells. Now, a little genetic engineering could put a stop to this scourge. Smith says “Mosquitoes have a symbiotic relationship with their bacteria the same way we do—they need their ‘good’ bacteria to get all the nutrients they need to survive.” By tweaking the protein output of one such bacteria, scientists have made mosquito guts inhospitable to…
tsmith | April 19, 2010Student guest post by Ahn To
There are two separate philosophies regarding the relationship between life and food. There are those that believe we only eat to live. On the other hand, there are those that believe one of life's greatest pleasures is food. I am a firm believer of the latter, thus, you can imagine my horror when I first learned of celiac disease (CD). This is a disease with no treatment except for a lifetime on a gluten-free diet, thus people with CD cannot eat many types of food. I knew then that I had to find out more about causation of CD, which includes the complex…