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Chronic bowel inflammation is based on an excessive or misdirected inflammatory reaction. Experts assume that the immune system also reacts incorrectly to microorganisms in the intestine that do not cause an inflammatory immune reaction in a healthy state. Now, researchers have discovered that yeast fungi could play an important role in this. Trillions of microorganisms colonize the human body, especially the intestine. This microbiome consists mainly of viruses and bacteria, but to a lesser extent also of fungi. However, according to current research, this interaction is disturbed in Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease where the immune cells react...

The director of research at a Massachusetts biotech firm has been accused searching online for deadly poisons and purchasing 800 castor bean seeds so he could extract the toxin ricin from them, federal prosecutors say. Dr. Ishtiaq Ali Saaem, 37, was charged on Tuesday with obstruction of justice after he allegedly lied to FBI agents when they were investigating why he was trying to acquire the deadly toxin. Authorities say Saaem had ordered 100 packets of castor beans, which each contained eight seeds, online.

Cases of Candida auris doubled in 2021, according to a new CDC report. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed the fungus Candida auris is spreading rapidly through U.S. health care facilities. Also known as C. auris, reports of cases linked to the drug-resistant fungus have doubled in 2021. In addition, the fungus is behind an outbreak in Mississippi that began in November, infecting at least 12 people and potentially responsible for about four deaths, according to figures provided by the state Department of Health to ABC News. Although C. auris does not present a...

Human muscle genes were successfully inserted into the DNA of baker’s yeast by biotechnologist Pascale Daran-Lapujade and her team at Delft University of Technology. For the first time, scientists have effectively inserted a crucial human characteristic into a yeast cell. Their research was recently published in the journal Cell Reports. Daran-group Lapujade’s previously succeeded in designing artificial chromosomes that operate as a DNA platform for building new functions into yeast. They wanted to test how far they could go with adding several human genes and complete metabolic pathways, and whether the cells could still operate as a whole. “What if...

Ernesto Di Maio is severely allergic to the yeast in leavened foods. "I have to go somewhere and hide because I will be fully covered with bumps and bubbles on the whole body," he says. "It's really brutal." Di Maio is a materials scientist at the University of Naples Federico II where he studies the formation of bubbles in polymers like polyurethane. He's had to swear off bread and pizza, which can make outings in Italy a touch awkward. "It's quite hard in Naples not to eat pizza," he explains. "People would say, 'Don't you like pizza? Why are you...

A woman in Pittsburgh has become the first documented case in a living person of an unusual medical condition where alcohol naturally brews in the bladder from the fermentation of yeast. The condition, which researchers propose to call either 'bladder fermentation syndrome' or 'urinary auto-brewery syndrome', is similar to another incredibly rare condition, auto-brewery syndrome, where simply ingesting carbohydrates can be enough to make you inebriated, even without consuming any alcohol via regular means. In the case, doctors became aware of what seems to be a related syndrome, after attending upon a 61-year-old patient who presented with liver damage and...

Around 2000 B.C., a baker in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes captured yeast from the air and kneaded it into a triangle of dough. Once baked, the bread was buried in a dedication ceremony beneath the temple of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II on the west bank of the Nile. There the yeast slept like a microbial mummy for four millennia, until 2019. That’s when Seamus Blackley—a physicist and game designer best known for creating the Xbox—suctioned it up with a syringe and revived it in a sourdough starter. Blackley, an amateur Egyptologist, often thinks about this ancient baker as he...

Yeast or no yeast, fresh-baked carbs are the comfort food we all need right now.Along with a temporary shortage of all-purpose flour, eggs, and other important ingredients that go in baked goods, you’ll notice it’s hard to find yeast at the grocery store. It seems that a big part of sheltering in place involves back-to-basics comfort food baking, and homemade bread tops the list. While experienced bread bakers might turn to sourdough starters when they can’t find yeast, we wanted to find a way to get our homemade bread fix without that much work. We turned to Jennifer Tyler Lee,...

U.S. authorities have charged a Maryland businessman with bribing a Russian official in an effort to win contracts to ship uranium to the United States. U.S. prosecutors unsealed money laundering, foreign bribery and wire fraud charges against Mark Lambert, 54, in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Friday. Lambert denies the allegations and plans to fight them in court, his attorney William Sullivan said during a pre-trial hearing. Prosecutors allege Lambert, former co-president of a Maryland-based shipping company Transport Logistics International (TLI), bribed a Russian energy official through a series of shell companies in Cyprus, Latvia and Switzerland in exchange...

One of the oldest and most successful human endeavors is the fermentation of cereal-based mush to create an ethanol-rich liquid. In other words, beer-making. At the heart of this process is yeast, a single-celled fungus that does all the heavy lifting for brewers. It is so important that beer makers have learned to collect the yeast from the fermented liquid and reuse it in the next round. This trick, called “serial repitching,” saves both time and money. However, after several generations, the quality of the yeast begins to drop. This impairs fermentation and introduces off flavors that ruin the beer....

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) responded to the crowd at President Trump's rally Wednesday night chanting "send her back" by tweeting a quote from Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise." “You may shoot me with your words,/You may cut me with your eyes,/You may kill me with your hatefulness,/But still, like air, I’ll rise,” Omar tweeted Wednesday. The chant erupted during the Greenville, N.C., rally as Trump made a series of remarks blasting Omar, a U.S. citizen who arrived as a refugee as a child. The rally followed several days of attacks by Trump on both Omar in particular and three...

Israeli researchers raised a glass Wednesday to celebrate a long-brewing project of making beer and mead using yeasts extracted from ancient clay vessels —some over 5,000 years old. Archaeologists and microbiologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and four Israeli universities teamed up to study yeast colonies found in microscopic pores in pottery fragments. The shards were found at Egyptian, Philistine and Judean archaeological sites in Israel spanning from 3,000 BC to the 4th century BC. The scientists are touting the brews made from "resurrected" yeasts as an important step in experimental archaeology, a field that seeks to reconstruct the past...

Last May, a elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed he was infected with a newly discovered germ. Doctors isolated him in ICU. Over the last five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a British medical center to shut down its ICU, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa. Recently C. auris reached New York, NJ and Illinois, leading the federal CDC and Prevention to add it to a list of germs deemed “urgent threats.” The man at...

Those pale button mushrooms in your supermarket hardly do justice to the diversity of fungi. The world hosts an incredible array of these important organisms—and mycologists are discovering more than 2000 new species a year, including ones that live on driftwood, bat guano, and even an oil painting. That’s according to a new report, titled State of the World’s Fungi, from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a botanical research institution in Richmond, U.K. The lavishly illustrated overview covers the usefulness of fungi (think beer, bread, and penicillin, for starters) as well as the serious threats that some fungi pose to...

The people who built the ancient structure, members of what's called the Natufian culture, struggled in a "hostile environment to gain more energy from their food," said Ehud Weiss, an archaeobotanist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who was not involved with the study. Archaeologists found the bread remains in sediment samples at a site named Shubayqa 1 in Jordan. The structure was oval with a fireplace in the center, and its builders carefully laid stones into the ground. Arranz Otaegui said she did not know whether the building was a dwelling or had other, perhaps ceremonial, purposes. Sifting through the...

A more sustainable pint of craft beer possibly coming to a pub near you +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hoppy beer is all the rage among craft brewers and beer lovers, and now UC Berkeley biologists have come up with a way to create these unique flavors and aromas without using hops. The researchers created strains of brewer's yeast that not only ferment the beer but also provide two of the prominent flavor notes provided by hops. In double-blind taste tests, employees of Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California, characterized beer made from the engineered strains as more hoppy than a control beer...

I never post, but this is noteworthy. Brewer's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is responsible for five percent of our gross domestic product. From bread to beer and beyond, this fungus has an incredible impact on our lives. Fungi are important!

Scientists at San Francisco-based biotech start-up Muufri -- (get it, moo free?) -- have developed a formula to re-create cow milk: six proteins for structure and function and eight fatty acids for flavor and richness, according to Muufri’s website. The milk product is also free of lactose and cholesterol and because it’s created in a lab, its seen as a sustainable alternative to traditional dairy cattle operations. According to Muufri, lactose is “partially indigestible by 75 percent of adults,” so the decision to leave it out creates a healthier product. Founders of Muufri, Ryan Pandya, Perumal Gandhi and Isha Datar,...

A 'superbug' fungus is emerging as a new menace in U.S. hospitals, mostly in New York and New Jersey. First identified in Japan in 2009, the fungus has spread to more than a dozen countries around the globe. The oldest of the 66 cases reported in the U.S. dates back to 2013, but most were reported in the last year. The fungus called Candida auris is a harmful form of yeast. Scientists say it can be hard to identify with standard lab tests. U.S. health officials sounded alarms last year because two of the three kinds of commonly used antifungal...

It’s weird to think about, but a lot of the things we take for granted are almost shockingly recent inventions. The can opener didn’t exist until 1870—nearly a full century after canned food was first produced (people ate so much canned food that year, you guys). Doors have been around forever, but doorknobs weren’t invented until 1878 (and people were finally able to leave their houses). And grape juice?