Any dedicated consumer of historical fiction or costume-epic movies knows that maggots applied to festering wounds by a folk healer will save the protagonist when all seems lost. Why we don’t use maggots in Western medicine? Well, some of us do.

When was the last time you had to give blood or a swab sample for a test, such as for a cold or flu, or some other virus? Have you ever wondered about the accuracy of the test results? If the test is FDA approved, then you can rest easy knowing that the test went [...]

Each winter, the flu season peaks in January as new strains of virus emerge and spread among school age children, elderly and immunocompromised members of the population. Diagnosis of flu, and other infectious diseases, puts serious strain on public health labs.  But the intense pressure to handle more samples faster is driving development of new innovative [...]

The recently released poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press puts light to an interesting dichotomy between scientists and the general public. If you have often wondered whether anyone outside the scientific world ever notices your hard work, take heart! You are appreciated! Seventy percent of the public view scientists as [...]

I have watched, with some bemusement, as the internet phenomenon that is Twitter has grown and grown, then grown some more. I say bemusement because it didn’t really make much sense to me. But millions of internet users can’t be wrong (ok, I know they can be) so I decided to take a look myself. [...]

A heads-up for Bitesize Bio readers: The U.S. National Institutes of Health last week issued Requests for Applications (RFAs) for approximately $120 million in grants to aid research on alcoholism, cancer biomarkers, fertility, mentoring, and pathogens relevant to biodefense, among other areas. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) asks for $50-$55 million worth of plans for [...]

Down with Crohn’s Disease: The National Institutes of Health announced Round 1 of funding for the Human Microbiome Project with $42 million in grants for three centers and 15 individual projects.

Many of my current research projects are focused on the dirt that makes the world go round. No, not the kind that a paparazzi photographer or gossip columnist would be interested in. I am talking about soil. And I am particularly interested in the microbial communities living in soil. Why Many Soil Microorganisms are Undiscovered [...]

The Scientist magazine has published a list of the top 10 innovations in life science in 2008, as judged by their panel of expert judges. Among the chosen highlights are: An in-vivo multispectral imaging system that provides fluorescence, luminescence, and radioisotopic imaging overlayed onto anatomical X-ray, which can be used to view molecular movement in [...]

All fields in Science thrive on fresh ideas that contest accepted theory. Yet, researchers seeking funded face ever greater competition for limited funds – funds that are overly wedded to safe, unadventurous research.