Microbiology

A growing population and greater wealth will mean more demand for meat in developing nations. That brings concern about air quality related to food production. Some emissions are direct, such as methane from ruminants, while others are secondary, such as growing food to feed animals.  A new paper in Animal Frontiers outlined methods to increase food production and reduce harmful gas output from cattle. "We are increasing the amount of product with same input," said Clayton Neumeier, PhD student at University of California, Davis in a statement. A test group of cattle received…

Oxygen is necessary for survival on Earth but the planet's atmosphere did not always contain this life-sustaining substance. One of science's greatest mysteries is how and when oxygenic photosynthesis—the process responsible for producing oxygen on Earth through the splitting of water molecules—first began. Geobiologists writing in PNAS say they have found evidence of a precursor photosystem involving manganese that predates cyanobacteria, the first group of organisms to release oxygen into the environment via photosynthesis.   The findings support the idea that manganese oxidation—which…

All animals live in a microbe rich environment, with immense numbers of bacteria, archaea, fungi and other eukaryotic microbes living in, on and around them. For some of these microbes, the association is transitory and unimportant, but many make animals their permanent home, or interact with them in ways that are vital for their survival. Many members of an animal’s “microbiome” are affected by, and often become dependent on, aspects of the animal’s behavior. And, as microbes will do, some – and we believe many – of these microbes have evolved specific ways to manipulate the…

Proteins may be more of a factor in shaping regulatory patterns than environment, according to a new study that looks at how cells' protein networks relate to a bacteria's genome. The lab of computer scientist Luay Nakhleh ar Rice University reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that when environmental factors are eliminated from an evolutionary model, mutations and genetic drift can give rise to the patterns that appear. They studied changes that show up in regulatory networks that determine the organism's characteristics. The researchers generated 1,000…

A new strain of photosynthetic cyanobacteria have been engineered to grow without the need for light.   The cyanobacterium strain Synechococcus elongatus strain PCC 7942 has been well characterized as a model photoautotroph in the lab of Shota Atsumi at the University of California, Davis. Previous work by Atsumi's lab has engineered this organism to recycle carbon dioxide into a variety of biofuels and valuable chemicals in the presence of light.   Any cost-effective, cyanobacterial biofuel production scheme would use natural lighting conditions, limiting how much biofuel could be…

The toxin that causes botulism is the most potent that we know of - just 1/1,000th the weight of a grain of salt can be fatal, which is why so much effort has been put into keeping Clostridium botulinum, which produces the toxin, out of our food. There are seven distinct, but similar, types of botulinum neurotoxin, produced by different strains of C. botulinum bacteria. Different sub-types of the neurotoxin appear to be associated with different strains of the bacteria. Genetic analysis of these genes will give us information about how they evolved. The Institute of Food Research has been…

'Pestilence', widespread outbreaks of deadly contagious disease, are known throughout history. In popular translations of the Christian Bible, Pestilence is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Today we call them pandemics but they are nothing like plagues of old, when up to 33% of a population was eradicated, like during the Black Death of the 14th century. Today we recognize that the major plagues were different from other pandemics and even pestilences. The third major plague in the late 1800s left microbiological evidence that the causing agent was the bacterium Yersinia pestis and…

The Black Sea sediment record has a terrific variety of past plankton species that left behind their genetic makeup - the plankton paleome. The semi-isolated Black Sea is highly sensitive to climate driven environmental changes, and the underlying sediments represent high-resolution archives of past continental climate and concurrent hydrologic changes in the basin. The brackish Black Sea is currently receiving salty Mediterranean waters via the narrow Strait of Bosphorus as well as freshwater from rivers and via precipitation. "However, during glacial sea level lowstands, the marine…

Bacterial vaginosis is a condition that occurs when the typical mix of microbes in the vagina is knocked off-kilter, sometimes resulting in a change in the consistency of vaginal fluids and an unpleasant odor. Bacterial vaginosis is diagnosed through examination of the vagina and tests of the vaginal fluids and then typically treated with antibiotics.  The condition affects as many as one in every three women, making it more common than yeast infections. But bacterial vaginosis often does not cause significant symptoms, leaving many women unaware they have it, but it has been linked to…

The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a common concern in hospitals worldwide, and is the evolutionary result of the selective pressures caused by our extensive use of antibiotics to fight bacterial infections. Scientists are often fighting the losing battle against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with every new antibiotic treatment outwitted by the bacteria’s uncanny ability to adapt to whatever adversity comes their way. Although bacteria’s evasive strategies may have outwitted scientists in the last century, their strategies still fall prey to the nature’s billion-year old…