Wine Yeasts Reveal Prehistoric Microbial World -- Science Daily

Short article of interest:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110511104517.htm

"ScienceDaily (May 11, 2011) — When having a glass of wine or beer, have you ever wondered why and how yeast "learned" to produce these superb food products? Yeasts are unicellular fungi and so far over 1,500 different species have been described. Among them are important industrial organisms, pathogens and model organisms which help us to understand how eukaryotic cells work...."

Nature Communications -- Parallel evolution of the make–accumulate–consume strategy in Saccharomyces and Dekkera yeasts

Pretty cool... this one is pretty neat too. Apparently the antibiotic tetracycline was present in ancient brews due to bacteria in soil the grains were grown in.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100902094246.htm