Microbial Matters, a podcast introducing latest microbiome research. Hi, I’m Jerry Zhang, a chemical biologist studying human microbiome. In this Podcast, I’m going to share with you newest advances in microbiome research, especially those related to human health.

Sarrazin-Gendron, R. et al. Improving microbial phylogeny with citizen science within a mass-market video game. Nat. Biotechnol. 1–9 (2024) doi:10.1038/s41587-024-02175-6.

Have you played Borderlands 3? Did you know that the in-game arcade mini-game, Borderlands Science, holds a hidden scientific treasure? Why is a podcast about gut microbiota talking about Borderlands 3? How are scientists using the mini-game Borderlands Science to tackle research challenges in gut microbiota? Why is sequence alignment so tough for AI but manageable for gamers? What are citizen science games? Which fields benefit from these games? How do video games and science come together? What is MMOS, and what are its goals and achievements?

Tune in to find out the surprising connection between gaming and gut microbiota research, and explore the fascinating world of citizen science games with us!

What Borderlands Science looks like:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZJerryZ/Microbial_Matters_SP16/main/BLS.png

How to align two nucleotide sequences:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZJerryZ/Microbial_Matters_SP16/main/alignment-EN.png

Link to the original article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-024-02175-6

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