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Magazine
In the May 11 & 25 SN: High-tech cricket farming, AI learns from Minecraft, looking for lithium, a new hominid species is named, signs of life in dead pig brains, Cherokee cave texts decoded, water molecules on the moon and more.
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News
Eating less protein may help curb gut bacteria’s growth
11/02/2018 - 06:00 Microbiology, Ecology, PhysiologyHumans and other animals may have a way to control the growth of gut microbes: Eat less protein.
That’s because protein contains nitrogen. And, it turns out, the amount of nitrogen in the diet of mice governed the growth of bacteria in the animals’ large intestine, researchers report October 29 in Nature Microbiology. The finding may help researchers learn how to manipulate the types and...
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Reviews & Previews
If you want to believe your home’s bug free, don’t read this book
10/30/2018 - 11:08 Animals, Ecology, Microbiology, Science & SocietyNever Home AloneRob DunnBasic Books, $28
As I write this in my basement office, a sticky trap lies beneath my desk catching whatever insects wander by. Its current haul is pretty typical: a cricket, a spider and some small flies. But as Rob Dunn writes in his intriguing new book, Never Home Alone, I’m missing a lot if I think that’s all that lurks beneath my slippers.
Dunn has...
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News in Brief
Why some people may be more susceptible to deadly C. difficile infections
10/24/2018 - 14:00 Microbiology, HealthAn intestinal pathogen that causes severe and sometimes life-threatening diarrhea is an opportunist that grows like gangbusters under the right conditions. Now, scientists may have discovered the opportunity that Clostridioides difficile waits for.
In mice, a disruption of the mix of microbes in the gut sets the stage for C. difficile infections. Such upsets allow the pathogen to...
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50 years ago, the safety of artificial sweeteners was fiercely debated
10/19/2018 - 06:00 Nutrition, Health, MicrobiologySafety challenged —
Americans consume 8,000 tons of artificial sweeteners every year …confident that the chemical sweeteners are safe. Manufacturers insist that they are; the sugar industry … insists they are not.… [B]oth camps swamped FDA with detailed evidence pro and con. — Science News, October 26, 1968
UpdateLet’s not sugarcoat it: The debate isn’t over. Fifty years ago,...
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News
Speeding up evolution to create useful proteins wins the chemistry Nobel
10/03/2018 - 18:46 Chemistry, MicrobiologyTechniques that put natural evolution on fast-forward to build new proteins in the lab have earned three scientists this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Frances Arnold of Caltech won for her method of creating customized enzymes for biofuels, environmentally friendly detergents and other products. She becomes the fifth woman to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry since it was first awarded...
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News in Brief
In China, a deadly strain of bird flu now easily infects ducks
09/27/2018 - 11:00 MicrobiologySome ducks in China now carry a deadly strain of bird flu.
Highly pathogenic versions of H7N9 — a bird flu strain that’s proven particularly deadly to people — and H7N2 viruses have turned up in ducks in the Fujian province. These viruses replicate easily in the ducks and can kill them, researchers report September 27 in Cell Host & Microbe. The discovery is worrisome because the...
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Feature
Emily Balskus uses chemical logic to study the microbiome
Emily Balskus, 38Chemistry and microbiologyHarvard University09/26/2018 - 08:34 Microbiology, Chemistry, HealthChemist Emily Balskus of Harvard University is out to expose the crimes and misdemeanors of microbes living in the human gut. She’s shown, for example, how a common gut bacterium interferes with a heart failure treatment: The microbe breaks down the medication before the drug can do its job.
Balskus, 38, originally...
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News
We may now know when hand, foot and mouth disease outbreaks will occur
08/23/2018 - 14:00 MicrobiologyEnteroviruses, including the ones that cause hand, foot and mouth disease, trigger outbreaks in predictable patterns.
Some of these viruses, which can lead to everything from fevers, rashes and blisters to meningitis and heart infections, circulate every year or every two or three years. But it’s been unclear how foreseeable those patterns are. Now, based on Japan’s birthrate and how...
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Letters to the Editor
Readers question dark fusion, Antarctic ice melting and more
Melt away08/09/2018 - 07:00 Climate, Particle Physics, MicrobiologyIn the last five years, Antarctica has lost ice nearly three times faster on average than it did over the previous 20 years — largely due to climate change, Laurel Hamers reported in “Antarctica has lost about 3 trillion metric tons of ice since 1992” (SN: 7/7/18, p. 6).
“Isn’t there a volcano or multiple volcanoes recently found under Antarctica that might also be...
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News
Nasty stomach viruses can travel in packs
08/08/2018 - 11:00 Cells, Immune Science, MicrobiologyConventional wisdom states that viruses work as lone soldiers. Scientists now report that some viruses also clump together in vesicles, or membrane-bound sacs, before an invasion. Compared with solo viruses, these viral “Trojan horses” caused more severe infections in mice, researchers report August 8 in Cell Host & Microbe.
Cell biologist Nihal Altan-Bonnet had been involved in...