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…

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,…

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'…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Of the uncertainties facing climate modelers, climate feedbacks from decomposition by soil microbes are among the biggest.  The dynamics among soil microbes allow them to work more…

The antibiotic-resistant bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 258 (ST258) is the predominant cause of human infections among bacteria classified as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (…