Word: bacterias
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
TOOTH FILLINGS HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF EVERYTHING from picking up radio transmissions to causing learning disabilities. Now comes another charge that could stick: fillings may be partly to blame for the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria...
...real villain is the mercury that makes up about 50% of dental amalgam. In a study reported in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, monkeys with mercury fillings showed a jump in drug-resistant bacteria from 9% to 70%; when the fillings were removed, resistance dropped to 12%. It seems the genes that protect bacteria from mercury lie close to those that protect against antibiotics, so bugs that survive one tend to survive the other...
...genomic walking strategy," he said. "We take the whole genome of this bacteria and walk along it, and actually sequence it directly...
According to Patrick M. Gillevet, director and chief scientist of the Harvard Genome Laboratory, Gilbert's project was to develop a direct sequencing method, using bacteria as models...
...culprit, test results show, is a tiny parasite with a big name: cryptosporidium. The oocysts (parasite versions of eggs) of this pesky protozoan can be removed only through filtration. Unlike bacteria, they are not readily killed by chlorine. Furthermore, the tests that water-purification plants routinely rely on to detect biological contaminants do not pick up the presence of cryptosporidium. What makes the parasite especially nasty, explains microbiologist Dean Cliver of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is that the oocysts do not hatch in water -- in this case Lake Michigan water -- but remain dormant until they are swallowed by some...