Discretizations

Posted on June 13, 2012 by David Oliver
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The journal Science has a special issue this month devoted to the gut microbiome emphasizing its importance in disease as well as a healthy immune system.

Speaking of the microbiome, NIH's Human Microbiome Project is reporting today on 5 years of work to map the genomes of our little friends - the results of which will be published tomorrow in Nature as well as various PLoS journals. Here's a teaser: " this plethora of microbes contribute more genes responsible for human survival than humans contribute."

Here's a link to the PLoS collection of new Human Microbiome Project papers.

Gina Kolata has a nice discussion about why this microbiome research is such a big deal over at the NYTimes.

Finally, "CNS neurotransmission can be profoundly disturbed by the absence of a normal gut microbiota".  Microbiobes clearly modulate serotonin levels, but why?

 

 

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