Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, visit our Cookie Policy.
News Microbes

How a slime mold near death packs bacteria to feed the next generation

Some social amoebas use proteins to preserve a food crop for their offspring

amoeba

SNACK STARTER  Some stealthy proteins let social amoebas save live food in the ball-shaped spore cases atop their slender stalks for the next generation.  

Usman Bashir/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Susan Milius

This article is only available to Science News subscribers.

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.

Not a subscriber?

Science News is a nonprofit.

Support us by subscribing now.

More Stories from Science News on Microbes

  1. Microscopic springtail
    Animals

    Earthy funk lures tiny creatures to eat and spread bacterial spores

    By Susan Milius
  2. one-celled algae with flagella
    Life

    Algae use flagella to trot, gallop and move with gaits all their own

    By Susan Milius
  3. Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum
    Life

    Microbiologists took 12 years to grow a microbe tied to complex life’s origins

    By Jonathan Lambert
  4. Life

    How bacteria create flower art

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  5. MRSA bacteria
    Microbes

    Microbes slowed by one drug can rapidly develop resistance to another

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  6. lung scans
    Health & Medicine

    Injecting a TB vaccine into the blood, not the skin, boosts its effectiveness

    By Tara Haelle
  7. airplane bathroom sign
    Microbes

    Airplane sewage may be helping antibiotic-resistant microbes spread

    By Carolyn Wilke
  8. chewed birch pitch
    Archaeology

    DNA from 5,700-year-old ‘gum’ shows what one ancient woman may have looked like

    By Sofie Bates

From the Nature Index

Paid Content