Book1985
The Fifth Kingdom
Bryce Kendrick
A comprehensive, engagingly written introduction to fungi -- their biology, diversity, ecology, and the roles both benign and pathogenic they play in the world.
PaidEntry
Microbiology
The organisms that outnumber and outweigh everything else.
11 topics · 13 curated works
Topics
- 01Foundations & Overviews
- 02Bacteriology1
- 03Virology1
- 04Mycology2
- 05Parasitology1
- 06Microbial Genetics1
- 07Microbial Ecology2
- 08The Human Microbiome1
- 09Antibiotic Resistance2
- 10Biofilms1
- 11Extremophiles & Archaea1
Reading in Microbiology
13A way in
Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
The Fifth Kingdom
Bryce Kendrick · 1985
A comprehensive, engagingly written introduction to fungi -- their biology, diversity, ecology, and the roles both benign and pathogenic they play in…
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Origins and Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
Julian Davies & Dorothy Davies · 2010
Argues antibiotic resistance genes are ancient and widespread in the environment long before clinical antibiotic use, rather than something evolving…
+1 more at this level
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
The Aetiology of Tuberculosis
Robert Koch · 1882
Lays out criteria a suspected microbe must satisfy before it can be accepted as the cause of a disease, criteria applied here to identify the…
+9 more at this level
12 of 13 works
Paper2010
Origins and Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
Julian Davies & Dorothy Davies
Argues antibiotic resistance genes are ancient and widespread in the environment long before clinical antibiotic use, rather than something evolving from scratch each time a new drug is introduced.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Talk2015
Bacterial cell walls, antibiotics and the origins of life
The Royal Society
Explains that most antibiotics work by attacking cell-wall synthesis, a structure animals lack, and that resistance follows from how readily bacteria can alter that one pathway.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Paper1882
The Aetiology of Tuberculosis
Robert Koch
Lays out criteria a suspected microbe must satisfy before it can be accepted as the cause of a disease, criteria applied here to identify the tuberculosis bacillus.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1897
On Some Peculiar Pigmented Cells Found in Two Mosquitos Fed on Malarial Blood
Ronald Ross
Reports pigmented parasite stages developing inside the gut wall of a mosquito that had fed on a malarial patient, providing the first direct evidence that a mosquito is the vector carrying malaria between people.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1941
Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora
George W. Beadle & Edward L. Tatum
Shows that mutations disabling a single gene in a bread mould each block one specific step of a metabolic pathway, proposing that one gene specifies one enzyme.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1971
Expression of Animal Virus Genomes
David Baltimore
Classifies every virus by the path its genome takes to messenger RNA, producing the seven-class system still used to organise virology today.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1977
Phylogenetic Structure of the Prokaryotic Domain: The Primary Kingdoms
Carl Woese & George Fox
Ribosomal RNA sequence comparison reveals archaea as a third, deeply separate domain of life, not a variant kind of bacterium.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1998
Prokaryotes: The Unseen Majority
William B. Whitman, David C. Coleman & William J. Wiebe
Estimates that prokaryotes outnumber all other life combined by an order of magnitude, and hold as much carbon as all plants -- a reframing of where the planet's biomass actually is.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1999
Bacterial Biofilms: A Common Cause of Persistent Infections
J. William Costerton, Philip S. Stewart & E. P. Greenberg
Argues that bacteria growing as surface-attached biofilm communities, not free-floating cells, explain why so many chronic infections resist antibiotics and the immune system alike.
PaidAdvanced
Paper2007
A Higher-Level Phylogenetic Classification of the Fungi
David S. Hibbett et al.
Synthesises molecular phylogenetics across thousands of species into a single revised classification of the fungal kingdom, replacing the older morphology-based scheme.
PaidAdvanced
Paper2008
The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles
Paul G. Falkowski, Tom Fenchel & Edward F. DeLong
Argues microbial metabolism, not plants or animals, actually runs Earth's carbon, nitrogen and sulphur cycles, and has done so for most of the planet's history.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
In order written
1882 – 2015- 1882The Aetiology of TuberculosisRobert Koch
- 1941Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in NeurosporaGeorge W. Beadle & Edward L. Tatum
- 1971Expression of Animal Virus GenomesDavid Baltimore
- 1977Phylogenetic Structure of the Prokaryotic Domain: The Primary KingdomsCarl Woese & George Fox
- 1985The Fifth KingdomBryce Kendrick
- 1998Prokaryotes: The Unseen MajorityWilliam B. Whitman, David C. Coleman & William J. Wiebe
- 1999Bacterial Biofilms: A Common Cause of Persistent InfectionsJ. William Costerton, Philip S. Stewart & E. P. Greenberg
- 2007A Higher-Level Phylogenetic Classification of the FungiDavid S. Hibbett et al.
- 2008The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical CyclesPaul G. Falkowski, Tom Fenchel & Edward F. DeLong
- 2010Origins and Evolution of Antibiotic ResistanceJulian Davies & Dorothy Davies
- 2012Structure, Function and Diversity of the Healthy Human MicrobiomeHuman Microbiome Project Consortium
- 2015Bacterial cell walls, antibiotics and the origins of lifeThe Royal Society