Search

The influenza virus is a quick-change artist. In a few decades, its genome can evolve as much as animal genomes can over millions of years. That means that the viral [...]

The 22 men took the same pill for four weeks. When interviewed, they said they felt less daily stress and their memories were sharper. The brain benefits were subtle, but [...]

Scientists have engineered a new way to genetically modify microbes so they are less likely to spread uncontrollably in the wild and wreak havoc. By creating bacteria that require molecules [...]

Microbes that inhabit the human body make a treasure trove of small molecules that could be developed into drugs such as antibiotics, cholesterol-fighters and chemotherapy agents, a new study finds. [...]

When kangaroos pass gas, the result is offensive to the nose but easy on the planet. Marsupial flatulence and belches contain little or no methane, a potent green-house gas. The [...]

We are not alone. Humans' vast inner and outer spaces teem with a menagerie of microbes that stand poised to alter conceptions of what and who we are. Traditionally, microbes [...]

For bacteria, practice makes perfect: Adjusting to increasing levels of antibiotics preps them to morph into super-resistant strains, and scientists can now watch it happen. A huge petri dish coated [...]

Where you live and what you eat can rapidly affect the types of friendly bacteria inhabiting your body. To see how the microbes that inhabit the mouth and intestines change [...]

In pregnant women, a normally benign bacterium emits tiny toxic balloons that can cause premature labor and stillbirth, a new study suggests. Called Group B Streptococcus, the bacterium lives in [...]

When bacteria lose genes needed to make enzymes for important chemical reactions, defeat isn't inevitable. Sometimes other enzymes will take on new roles to patch together a work-around chain of [...]

What builds up can also tear down, a new study of bacteria suggests. Bacteria build biofilms, communities of the microorganisms encased in a protective goo that shields the microbes from [...]

Obliterating bacteria in the gut may hurt the brain, too. In mice, a long course of antibiotics that wiped out gut bacteria slowed the birth of new brain cells and [...]

A gut microbe collected from chinchilla droppings might be the first complex life-form to lack even a shred of a supposedly universal organelle. Monocercomonoides, a one-celled gut microbe, apparently has [...]

Good gut bacteria might not help people with Crohn's disease. Protective microbial messages go unread in mice and human immune cells with certain defective genes, researchers report online May 5 [...]

Rachel Dutton's research is cheesy, by design. The microbiologist at the University of California, San Diego uses cheese rinds to study how microbes form communities. Dutton, who has a long-standing [...]

Scientists have built a bacterium that contains the minimal genetic ingredients needed for free living. This bacterium's entire set of genetic blueprints, its genome, consists of only 473 genes. The [...]

Sometimes extinction is just a fluke, a long-term experiment in evolution has shown. Scientists captured an extinction in a bottle during a study in evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski's lab at [...]

Weight loss surgery causes bacteria in the intestines to extract fewer calories from food, a new study suggests. Changes to the gut microbiome last at least nine years after Roux-en-Y [...]

Plants help tend their own gardens. Salicylic acid, a plant hormone that fights microbial infections in leaves, also helps plants select which bacteria colonize their roots, researchers report online July [...]

By coaxing billions of E. coli to work together, French researchers got a small sample of a bacteria-laden solution to have no resistance to flow, or zero viscosity. Such effortless [...]

Humans have evolved a less diverse mix of gut microbes than great apes have. Compositions of gut microbial communities steadily changed as African apes evolved. But in humans such shifts [...]

Gut infections from the bacterium Clostridium difficile can be fought with a closely related but harmless microbe known as C. scinderts. The friendly bacterium combats infection in mice by converting [...]

The Bahamas owes its origins to windswept dust from Africa's Sahara Desert, scientists propose June 30 in Geology. The dust nourishes microbes that produce calcium carbonate, the building block of [...]

Triclosan, after being flushed down the drain, may muck up sewage treatment. In wastewater treatment plants, the omnipresent antimicrobial may sabotage some sludge-processing microbes and promote drug resistance in others. [...]

The placenta harbors an unexpected collection of bacteria. Its mix of microbes may promote healthy pregnancies or lead to premature births. Doctors and scientists have long thought that the placenta, [...]