About mBiosphere
mBiosphere is a blog that brings you the latest news from American Society for Microbiology’s open access research, including our online-only journals, mBio®, mSystemsTM, and mSphereTM. With the blog, we'll bring you highlights from articles published in our journals, along with articles about microbiology, science culture, and the journals themselves. Subjects you'll read about here at mBiosphere include:
- Summaries of some of the most interesting articles in our journals,
- Interviews with authors of research papers,
- Descriptions of new features in mBio®, mSystemsTM, and mSphereTM
- ASM’s approach to open-access.
Our audience includes scientists and non-scientists alike, so we strive to deliver the best microbiology discoveries without any more jargon or technical language than is necessary.
Like many blogs, the tone on mBiosphere is informal and direct. We're also using other social media tools like Twitter to get the message out about our research, but here on the blog we'll offer you a more in-depth look at the science, along with the opportunity to discuss and debate the topics you read about. Blogs are all about participation, so review our simple rules for comments (below) and use the "comments" link at the bottom of any given post to join the discussion.
Your Comments on mBiosphere
One of our goals here at mBiosphere is to encourage participation by you, our readers. We want your comments! If you have anything you want to add, share, or discuss in reference to a blog post, please click the “comments” link at the end of the post and fill out the form.
In the spirit of fostering dialog that adds to the value of our posts and to the knowledge of our readers, we have developed some rules to live by when writing a comment:
- Dissenting opinions are welcome. Inappropriate, insulting, or malicious comments will be weeded out. In short, play nice.
- mBio reserves the right to edit comments for clarity and relevance.
- By all means, please include relevant links within your comments. Links to sites unrelated to the topic at hand will wind up on the cutting room floor. Snip!
- Please don’t use keywords in the “author” field. Use your real name or your nickname. If we think there’s a chance you’re using a certain name just for the sake of keywords, then: Snip!
Thank you for following these guidelines.
About ASM and open access
The American Society for Microbiology is the nation’s largest scientific society. Consisting of 43,000 members, with more than one third located outside the United States, ASM members represent 26 disciplines within microbiology plus a division for microbiology educators.
mBioR is the premier ASM journal offering rapid review and publication of the best research in microbiology and allied fields, and was launched in 2010. mSystemsTM encompasses systems microbiology and mSphereTM includes all high-quality microbiology research; both will have their inaugural issues in early 2016. ASM is committed to publishing these three online-only journals free and open access to anyone, anywhere.
In addition to these, ASM publishes 13 other professional journals. These journals have several open access articles each month, selected by the journal editor or the authors of the study. These are the articles we will highlight here on mBioSphere. Each original article will be available either through this website or through its home journal site.
The scope of mBioSphere reflects the enormity of the microbial world, a highly interconnected biosphere where microbes interact with living and non-living matter to produce outcomes that range from symbiosis to pathogenesis, energy acquisition and conversion, climate change, geologic change, food and drug production, and even animal behavioral change. We encourage authors to explain how their findings fit into the larger picture.
mBiosphere by the American Society of Microbiology is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivative 4.0 International License. Distribution is allowed for noncommercial use only; please ensure proper attribution to mbioblog.asm.org.
Visit mBio® online at http://mbio.asm.org
Visit other ASM publications online at http://www.journals.asm.org
About the Bloggers
Karen Blum is an experienced health and science writer who lives in the Baltimore area. Her work has been published in daily newspapers including The Baltimore Sun and The Palm Beach Post; national news websites like msn.com and WebMD.com; and magazines for health professionals including Anesthesiology News, Pharmacy Practice News, and Internal Medicine News.
Freelance science writer and editor, Kendall Powell covers the realm of biology, from molecules to maternity. She has written news stories, features and scientist profiles for a variety of publications including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Nature, PLoS Biology, Journal of Cell Biology, Science Careers and the HHMI Bulletin. She is a contributor to The Science Writers’ Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch, Publish, and Prosper in the Digital Age (2013 Da Capo) available at pitchpublishprosper.com.
ASM Communications Social Media Specialist Julie Wolf spent her research career focused on medical mycology and infectious disease. Broadly interested in microbiology and scientific communication, she has taught at Long Island University and the community biolab Genspace and has written for the Scientista Foundation and Scholastic’s Science World magazine. Follow her on Twitter for more ASM highlights at @JulieMarieWolf.