Microbes

  1. Neuroscience

    Shifting views of brain cells, and other fresh perspectives

    The details emerging from the latest work on glial cells are sure to yield more insights as scientists continue their struggle to understand the mind.

    By Eva Emerson
  2. Life

    The tree of life gets a makeover

    Biology’s tree of life has morphed from the familiar classroom version emphasizing kingdoms into a complex depiction of supergroups, in which animals are aligned with a slew of single-celled cousins.

    By Susan Milius
  3. Life

    Antibody that fights MERS found

    Scientists have isolated a human immune protein that fights the MERS virus in mice.

    By Sarah Schwartz
  4. Life

    Microbes’ role in truffle scents not trifling

    Truffles make their prized aroma with a little help from their microbes, chemists suggest.

    By Beth Mole
  5. Health & Medicine

    Mosquitoes can get a double dose of malaria

    Carrying malaria may make mosquitoes more susceptible to infection with a second strain of the parasite that causes the disease.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  6. Plants

    Defense hormones guide plant roots’ mix of microbes

    Plants use salicylic acid to attract some bacteria to roots and repel others.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  7. Microbes

    Spore-powered engines zoom ahead

    Engines that run on the dehydration of bacterial spores can power a tiny car and an LED.

    By Beth Mole
  8. Ecosystems

    Ocean food source lives by day, dies by night

    The most abundant carbon fixer in the oceans lives by day, dies by night, and may be key to the balance of marine ecosystems.

    By Sarah Schwartz
  9. Animals

    Pandas’ gut bacteria resemble carnivores’

    Unlike other vegetarians, the bamboo eaters lack plant-digesting microbes.

    By Meghan Rosen
  10. Microbes

    Pig farm workers at greater risk for drug-resistant staph

    Pig farm workers are six times as likely to carry multidrug-resistant staph than workers who have no contact with pigs.

    By Beth Mole
  11. Chemistry

    Bacteria staining method has long been misexplained

    New research upends what scientists know about a classic lab technique, called gram staining, used for more than a century to characterized and classify bacteria.

    By Beth Mole
  12. Microbes

    Possible nearest living relatives to complex life found in seafloor mud

    New phylum of sea-bottom archaea microbes could be closest living relatives yet found to the eukaryote domain of complex life that includes people.

    By Susan Milius