Fungal parasite of caterpillars is source of "Himalayan viagra"

Photo by Nicolas Merky

Wow – never heard of this fungus before reading this CNN piece: ‘Himalayan Viagra’ taking its toll on Nepal – CNN.com. The fungus infects caterpillars (larva of a ghost moth) in the Himalayas and kills them. And the fungal coated dead caterpillars are, alas, considered to have multiple uses in various traditional Chinese medicine practices. One of the uses is as an aphrodisiac and thus these have become known as “Himalayan viagra”.

The fungus that does this is Ophiocordyceps sinensis – (it is an Ascomycota).  Not a huge literature out there if you search just for this species name but thanks to Wikipedia I found out there are some synonyms so if you search Pubmed for all the names one gets 328 papers and 56 of these have free full text including a few that seem quite useful:

So – seems that what happens here is the fungus infects larva and then kills them and then a fruiting body grows out of the caterpillars head … fun.
Snooping around led to some other news stories about this system including many that came out recently
Anyway – seems like this would be a fun organism for genome sequencing … 

Microbial music: Christine Lavin and the Amoeba Hop

Always searching for science-art-music combinations.  Especially ones that focus on some aspect of science I work on, like microbes. And, well, though this recording is less than ideal, and you need to wait a minute and a half or so, once you get to the song it is worth it.

The song is “The Amoeba Hop” and the singer is the brilliant Christine Lavin.

I have had this song in my head on and off for years and wanted to post about it for a while.  I finally remembered to Google it tonight after reading a tweet about combining music and biology.  I used to listen to Lavin all the time in college and even went to a show of hers in 1989 in Ft. Collins, CO with my brother and my friend Saul Jacobson.  As a side note – we saw Lavin at some music hall type of place the the night after seeing Killdozer at a VFW post.  As a second side note – the Killdozer show was crazy (and I even found someone else who wrote about it here).

Anyway – not only did I find the video posted above but I discovered she wrote a book in 2002 based on the song – and the book even got a review in the New York Times.   Gonna probably have to get that book at some point …

Ion Torrent Mobile Sequencing Bus Coming to #UCDavis 7/9/12!

Just got this by email. I have no idea what is in the Mobile Bus but thought it might be of interest:

bus flyer – UC Davis 7-9.pdf

Call For Papers: “Phylogenomics & Population Genomics: Models, Algorithms, & Analytical Tools” Session at PSB 2013]

Call for papers

Phylogenomics and Population Genomics: Models, Algorithms, and Analytical Tools Co-chairs: Luay Nakhleh (Rice U.), Noah Rosenberg (Stanford U.), and Tandy Warnow (U. Texas)

A session at the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB 2013) http://psb.stanford.edu/cfp.html#ppg

January 3-7, 2013
The Big Island of Hawaii

Background:

The increasing availability of whole-genome data from diverse species across the Tree of Life has propelled phylogenomics, the evolutionary analysis of genomes and their relationships, to the forefront of research. Research in phylogenomics has contributed to fundamental questions in biology including, but not limited to: orthology identification, species evolution, the extent and role of horizontal gene transfer, and protein function prediction. Further, as sequencing techniques continue to improve in efficiency and cost, whole-genome data is becoming available for many individuals within populations. This has given rise to interesting questions and problems in population genomics, such as comparative analysis of conserved and ultra-conserved regions, the interplay between adaptive and
non-adaptive evolutionary forces, and the detection of regulatory regions.

Research areas targeted in this session encompass mathematical models and computational tools that enable and/or utilize phylogenomic analyses. These include, but are not limited to: orthology detection, gene tree incongruence and its reconciliation (incomplete lineage sorting, gene duplication and loss, and horizontal gene transfer), protein function prediction, ancestral genome reconstruction, and elucidating the adaptive roles of evolutionary events such as gene duplication and horizontal gene transfer.

Session theme:

We invite contributions with a substantial and innovative mathematical or computational component (such as computational models, algorithms, simulation studies, and computationally innovative analyses of biological data) in all areas of phylogenomics, including, but not limited to, gene tree incongruence, species phylogeny inference, ancestral genome reconstruction, and integration with population genetics.

Important Dates
• Paper submission deadline: July 31, 2012
• Notification of paper acceptance: September 10, 2012
• Camera-ready copy deadline: October 1, 2012

All deadlines are at midnight Pacific Standard Time.

Paper Format
Please see the PSB paper format template and instructions at http://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit.

The file formats we accept are: Postscript (*.ps) and Portable Document Format (*.pdf). Attached files should be named with the last name of the first author (e.g., altman.ps or altman.pdf). Hardcopy submissions or unprocessed TEX or LATEX files will be rejected without review.

Each paper must be accompanied by a cover letter. The cover letter must state the following:
• The email address of the corresponding author
• The specific PSB session that should review the paper or abstract • The submitted paper contains original, unpublished results, and is not currently under consideration elsewhere.
• All co-authors concur with the contents of the paper.

Submitted papers are limited to twelve (12) pages in our publication format. Please format your paper according to instructions found at http://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit/. If figures cannot be easily resized and placed precisely in the text, then it should be clear that with appropriate modifications, the total manuscript length would be within the page limit.

Contact PSB (psb.hawaii @ gmail.com) for additional information about paper submission requirements.

#Microbe humor: Spacewalk 1986: Bacteria

“Who Cares About Bacteria?”

A #microbe by any other name would smell as sweat?

Love the them of this post and what may be a series of posts on smells of microbes: Which Bacteria Smell Like Tortillas, Flowers, or Delicious Browned Butter? | Discoblog | Discover Magazine

Looking forward to smelling/reading more from Veronica Greenwood on this topic.  For other stuff on smells of microbes see:

and much more …
Oh – and yes, the “sweat” not “sweet” in the title is on purpose …

If the International Whaling Commission really wanted to improve cetacean-science it could require openness rather than allowing whaling

There is a bit of a kerfuffle going on over South Korea announcing plans to increase whaling for “scientific reasons.”

See for example: Grist: South Korea may start hunting whales again, for ‘science’ and CNN: South Korea says it may resume whaling, angering environment groups‘ and WSJ South Korea Whaling Plan Sparks Outcry

This seems to me to be pretty cut and dry.  The Korean’s do not seem to be truly interested in the science here.  And I note – nor does the “International Whaling Commission”: Commission information.  If they really wanted to expand the scientific study of whales they would do things like foster sharing of samples, collaboration across groups, open access to data and resources, and such.  But as far as I can tell they do no such things.

The whole operation here smells fishy – or whaly.  Sounds like this is pretty much all about hunting and making money and giving in to pressure to find something other than people to blame for mismanagement of fish stocks.

Microbe humor of the week: Jon Stewart from 1999 on Giant Bacterium

Jon Stewart from 1999 on Giant Bacterium

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Other News – Baby’s Got Bacteria
www.thedailyshow.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:105647
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Huffington Post picks me & two members of lab as top biologists/chemists to follow on Twitter

From here.

Good press for my lab here: Scientists On Twitter: 30 Biologists And Chemists To Follow

The list (which started out at 30 and expanded to 47) included three people from my lab: me (@phylogenomics), post doc Holly Bik (@dr_bik) and PhD student Russell Neches (@ryneches).

I like that I am the first one shown on the slideshow (though not sure if this means I am #1 on their list or just random …).

Making such lists is always a challenge and also rife with issues.  There are many many great tweeters of chemistry and biology not on the list, for example. But I think they did a pretty good job covering diverse types of people here.  Lots of women too, which was good to see.

Anyway – thanks to Rebecca Searles and her advisor Jason Goldman for compiling the list and making my lab look pretty good …

Full list:

  1. @phylogenomics
  2. @NerdyChristie
  3. @nparmalee
  4. @biochembelle
  5. @kejames
  6. @DrBondar
  7. @kzelnio
  8. @girlscientist
  9. @MiriamGoldste
  10. @modernscientist
  11. @PolymerPhD
  12. @toraks
  13. @RichardDawkins
  14. @nuin
  15. @DrRubidium
  16. @mitpostdoc
  17. @Evolutionistrue
  18. @ChemicalBiology
  19. @WhySharksMatter
  20. @Aur_ora
  21. @ChemistPD
  22. @dgmacarthur
  23. @DNLee5
  24. @aetiology
  25. @Myrmecos
  26. @thisischristina
  27. @deborahblum
  28. @SeeArrOh
  29. @carmendrahl
  30. @Dr_Bik
  31. @TCNoel
  32. @nssampson
  33. @sciencegeist
  34. @SFriedScientist
  35. @kg_science
  36. @JATetro
  37. @JacquelynGill
  38. @Katie_PhD
  39. @D_Aldridge
  40. @JohnFBruno
  41. @ScientistMags
  42. @jtotheizzoe
  43. @MayaPlass
  44. @scimomof2
  45. @DrTwittenheimer
  46. @leonidkruglyak
  47. @ryneches

Nice feature on the human microbiome in the SF Chron w/ a little Toxoplasma error

Nice article in the SF Chronicle by Erin Allday on human microbiome related topics.  It features some Bay Area scientists working on the issue – David Relman, Janet Jansson, Les Dethlefsen, and Michael Fischbach.  See:100 trillion good bacteria call human body home – SFGate.

It has some nice pictures of Relman in the lab (though I think he could use some new lighting in there …).  There is one microbial error in there

At least one bacterium – toxoplasmosis gondii – has been shown to affect behavior. The bacterium reproduces only in cats, and studies have shown that when mice or rats are infected with it, the bacterium makes them less afraid of cats, and they are, therefore, more likely to be eaten by them.

Alas toxoplasmosis is caused by a microbial eukaryote known as Toxoplasma gondii (it is a relative of the causative agent of malaria Plasmodium falciparum).  But otherwise the article is a good read.  I like the end

Fischbach at UCSF is perhaps facing the most difficult challenge: caring for his days-old daughter and nurturing her infant microbiome. He’s in the tough position of having both too much and not nearly enough information. 

“My wife and I have tried to pledge to each other that this is going to be our baby, not our experimental subject,” Fischbach said with a laugh. “At the same time, my thinking is influenced by the things going on around me. The cast of characters in her is changing dramatically week to week, day to day. I do wonder, where are most of the bacteria that she’s got in the gut coming from?”

And as a bonus there is an interview with Relman too:  Sequencing of human microbiome fills knowledge gap