On this page, you'll find regularly updated audio, video, and text reports from our producers and correspondents. We invite you to join the discussion about topics covered here on our board and to subscribe to our audio and video podcasts to download these reports to your computer or MP3 player.

12.22.2006 Bacteria Unite!

(running time 2:50)

It's a scary thought: bacteria "talking" together, conspiring before they make you sick. Below, Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University explains how scientists are beginning to see these tiny organisms—once thought completely asocial—in a whole new way.

This feature requires the Flash MX (or greater) plugin. Use the links below to get the plugin.

Bonnie Bassler is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Her work focuses on the molecular mechanisms bacteria use to "talk" with one another, and her lab has shown that the same mode of communication first studied in a harmless, glowing marine bacterium also exists in virulent microbes. Such research may lead to new therapies for deadly diseases.