Microbiology

Third World Yeast Made First World Beer Possible

Not many people care about where the yeast that makes much of modern beer possible came from. But science cares. The cold-adapted yeast that blended with a distant cousin to make the lager-churning hybrid has been a biological black box for the last 500 y ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 3 2015 - 5:47pm

Plant Zombies: How Bacterial Parasites Turn Them Into The Living Dead

It's no secret that bacterial parasites can change creatures. The parasitic lancet liver fluke infects the brain of ants, compelling them to climb to the tip of a blade of grass and into the mouth of a grazing animal. Another parasite is thought to ch ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 12 2014 - 5:30am

Symbiotic Association: Wasps And Microbes Have Been Faithful Allies Since The Cretaceous

Humans depend on microbes for survival. So do most animals and such symbioses can persist for millions of years. Scientists have discovered that certain wasps tightly control mother-to-offspring transmission of their bacterial symbionts. This stabilizes t ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 14 2014 - 3:32pm

How Pathogenic E. Coli O157:H7 Binds To Fresh Vegetables

Food-poisoning outbreaks linked to Escherichia coli are often associated with tainted meat products but up to 30% of these are caused by people eating contaminated vegetables, and that has risen with the popularity of the organic process, as was seen in t ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 15 2014 - 10:46pm

Reproduce Or Conquer The World? Bacterial Adventures In Theoretical Biophysics

The bacterium Bacillus subtilis is quite adaptable, it moves about in liquids and on agar surfaces by means of flagella and alternatively, it can just stick to an underlying substrate.  The bacteria proliferate most effectively in this stationary state, wh ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 20 2014 - 9:42am

Tunable Coupling For Genetic Circuits- FM Radio For Bacteria

The ability to program living holds tremendous potential for energy, agriculture, water remediation and medicine, and synthetic biology is on the case. Researchers have already designed a 'tool box' of small genetic components that act as intrace ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2014 - 9:30am

Black Death: A Plague In Your Family

For the first time, researchers have studied the Black Death bacterium's entire family tree to fully understand how some of the family members evolve to become harmful. Contrary to popular belief, pathogenic members of this bacterial family do not sh ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2014 - 9:00pm

Come Hither Bacteria, Though I Know You Mean Me Harm

There's a hidden battle happening planet-wide at the microbe level.  Researchers have discovered that Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant widely used as a model organism in plant biology, puts out a welcome mat to bacteria seeking to invade ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 24 2014 - 9:10am

Alteromonas Bacterium Plays A Big Role In Ocean Carbon Cycling

It's broadly understood that the world's oceans play a crucial role in the global-scale cycling and exchange of carbon between Earth's ecosystems and atmosphere. Now scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have tak ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 24 2014 - 3:49pm

Why We Should Keep Smallpox Around

Smallpox as a disease is dead and has been since 1980. Should we let the virus behind it die? Variola, the virus that causes smallpox, is on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing body of the World Health Orga ...

Article - News Staff - May 4 2014 - 11:00pm