How cheese can help explain today's White House microbiome announcement
Without microbes, there'd be no Camembert...
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced today a new National Microbiome Initiative to encourage scientists to work together to study microbes — and the collections of microbes called microbiomes — across disciplines. The goal is to get a better understanding of these little critters that live everywhere — from the soil we plant crops in, to the oceans we swim in, to our very own digestive systems.
And it's not just understanding them. Scientists want to know enough to be able to affect different outcomes by tinkering with microbiomes.
Need an example to make it more concrete? So did we. So ASU Now sat down with Ferran Garcia-Pichel, the founding director of ASU's Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics.
And we found understanding of the mysterious — and tiny, obviously — world of microbiomes in of all places, a block of cheese.
More Science and technology
SpaceHACK highlights student solutions to environmental challenges, digital divide
By Adrianna Nine About 250 students from around the world convened online and at Arizona State University on March 22 for the ASU Interplanetary Initiative’s second annual SpaceHACK for…
New AI for a new era of discovery
As the legend goes, in 1665, Sir Isaac Newton sat in his garden at Woolsthorpe Manor in England and looked on as a lone apple dropped from a tree branch, falling straight down. This chance encounter…
ASU receives 3 awards for research critical to national security
Three researchers in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University have received grant awards under the Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or…