Featured series 
Tag: microbes and microbiology
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Health
Killer mushrooms!
It is thought to have been responsible for the deaths of emperors. In parts of California’s forests, it is everywhere. It is the deathcap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, so filled with…
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Science & Tech
Scientists discover how ocean bacterium turns carbon into fuel
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantra time and again. When it comes to carbon—the “Most Wanted” element in terms of climate change—nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it’s up to us to reduce.
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Health
Microbes thrive in harsh, isolated water under Antarctic glacier
A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report this week in the journal…
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Science & Tech
Exploring hidden life’s abundance
Two miles below the surface of the Sargasso Sea lies a depression in the Earth’s crust filled with sediment and, scientists believe, teeming with life — exotic, microscopic, and very…
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Health
The pine beetle’s tale
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have discovered how beetles and bacteria form a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship — one that ultimately results in the…
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Health
Intestinal bacteria promote and prevent inflammatory bowel disease
Scientists search for drug candidates in some very unlikely places. Not only do they churn out synthetic compounds in industrial-scale laboratories, but they also scour coral reefs and scrape tree bark in the hope of stumbling upon an unsuspecting molecule that just might turn into next year’s big block buster. But one region that scientists…
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Health
Food pathogen vector shows promise against cancer
For the past four decades, researchers have poked and prodded Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes – the basic science trade names of sometimes deadly bugs – to discover how they…
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Health
Discovering what lives in your mouth
Your mouth is a great place for micropests to dwell. Glistening white plateaus, dark crevices, and slimy surfaces boast steamy temperatures of 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The microbes bathe in a…
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Science & Tech
Genetic computation tells man from microbe
By one estimate (based on bacteria counts in the colon or stool samples), microbes that call our bodies home outnumber human cells 10 to 1. Most of the bacteria, viruses,…
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Science & Tech
Human genome sequence yields new tool for microbe-hunting
Microbiologists have traditionally identified pathogens (disease-causing organisms) by growing them in a laboratory dish from a sample of infected tissue. But not all pathogens can be cultured this way. Molecular…
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Health
Anthrax toxin receptor discovered
The first point of contact between anthrax toxin that invades the body and the cells that the toxin will eventually destroy is a protein, known as a “docking” protein or…