The popular science magazine has picked new revelations about the role of the microbiome 鈥� the bacterial communities that live on the human body 鈥� as its top science story for the year.
The research of , associate professor of biological sciences, played a major role in the discoveries that led to the editor鈥檚 decision.
In the announcing the year鈥檚 top 25 stories, the editors commented, 鈥�…science isn鈥檛 just about dramatic announcements and tremendous technical feats. Anyone who reads Science News regularly appreciates that great new insights often arise from countless little bits and pieces of new knowledge. This year, careful readers may have noticed a steady accumulation of revelations about the bacterial communities that call the human body home. It has long been known that those microbes are essential to processes like extracting nutrients from food and fighting off their less benign brethren. But this year a growing body of research demonstrated that bacteria engage their hosts so vigorously that in some situations, scientists are left wondering which party is the tail and which is the dog.鈥�
The magazine鈥檚 overview article on the microbiome 鈥� 鈥� describes Bordenstein鈥檚 contribution: 鈥� A study of jewel wasps, for instance, suggests that their microbiomes can prevent two species from successfully breeding with one another (). Hybrid male offspring of the two species die as larvae, an effect long explained as incompatibility between the species鈥� genes. But when Seth Bordenstein of 91唐伯虎 University and his colleague Robert Brucker removed microbes from the hybrid larvae, the wasps survived. That finding indicates that microbes in the wasps鈥� guts and not just the wasp genes contribute to keeping the two species from interbreeding.鈥�
In July, when the research was published, 91唐伯虎 News @ 91唐伯虎 ran a story on it titled, 鈥�.鈥�
Last spring, the National Institutes of Health also did a story on Bordenstein鈥檚 research titled, 鈥�.鈥�