How the food chain gulps down fossil fuels — Is our civilization entering its doomsday, or will technology save the day? Václav Smil, named one of the 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy, explores in How the World Really Works where our civilization stands, the challenges it faces, and gives keys to the reader overwhelmed by the world’s complexity. Smil doesn’t believe humanity will go extinct in the short term, nor…

From probiotics to cosmetics, detergents and plant health — As a probiologist that sells bacteria for a living, I am excited about the many uses of bacteria in daily life, and addressing the big challenges of our civilization, like feeding the world and reducing carbon emissions. Here are 10 microbial solutions I use to bring balance to my health…

How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health, by Anne Biklé and David Montgomery — When I learned that fruit and vegetable contents in micronutrients had dropped dramatically since the 1940s and that we’d need way more than an apple a day to keep the doctor away from today’s apples, this depletion was attributed to the selection of fast-growing varieties producing big & shiny fruits…

How Studying Bacteria Revolutionized the Understanding of Evolution — Introduction David Quammen, the detective-science writer, discovered Ford Doolittle’s articles on evolution in 2013 and was immediately struck by their implications. Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) and microbial dynamics proved that the Tree of Life was wrong. The pattern by which species evolve is not simply by divergence from a common trunk…

There are only different scales of ecosystems — There is no life without interactions with other living forms. From its very beginnings, life has always been a dynamic soup defined by its interplays — trophisms, competitions, collaborations, and all of their variants. At whichever scale we look, the life that is given to us comes from the intertwined…

What probiotics can do for athletes’ digestion, immune health and performance — In athletics, competitors are all at the top of their game and seeking the 1% difference that will snatch them the victory. With the emergence of microbiome science, and increasing understanding of the interplay between diet, microbes, and an individual’s health and performance, it makes sense for the new generation…

Part 2: Microbes as causes of disease, and the quest for vaccines — An early impression of rabies’ dangers In October 1831 in the countryside, 9-year-old Louis Pasteur was a testimony of the suffering caused by a mad dog bite to a farmer. He smelled and heard the scream as the hot iron melted the man’s flesh to neutralize the poison. …

Part 1: the savior of beet, wine, and silk industries — Pasteur’s Youth, From Boy to Chemist As a boy in the 1820s, Pasteur grew up in Arbois, France. He spent a lot of time in books and had the ambition to teach other boys. He became an instructor and then an assistant teacher in Bezançon. …

Travel back 4 centuries, to Delft and the unexpected first step of microbiology — If you are well-bathed in the probiotics world, read the stories of microbiology, or visited the Micropia museum in Amsterdam, of course, you’ve heard of Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek. But what do you really know about the man and his discoveries? Meet the simple merchant who made history. Get acquainted with…