5,519 results
- Tech
More bang for the biofuel buck
Microbes that ferment glycerol to ethanol could add an economically valuable new ingredient to the biofuel industry.
- Humans
Letters from the September 8, 2007, issue of Science News
Patent pending If Drs. Glass and Venter succeed in assembling a viable synthetic bacterial genome (“Life Swap: Switching genomes converts bacteria,” SN: 6/30/07, p. 403), will the genome or the new life form itself be patentable? Virgil H. SouleFrederick, Md. The team that performed this work stirred controversy when it applied for a patent on […]
- Earth
Drug Overflow: Pharmaceutical factories foul waters in India
A treatment plant in India that processes waste from drug factories feeds enormous amounts of antibiotics and other drugs into local waterways.
- Health & Medicine
Eye Protection: Antibiotic knocks back blinding disease
Twice-a-year administration of the antibiotic azithromycin to Ethiopian villagers greatly reduces cases of trachoma, a blinding eye disease.
- Chemistry
In a Fix: Agricultural chemicals disturb a natural relationship
Several pesticides can disrupt a partnership that enables certain plants to take up nitrogen by enlisting the help of bacteria.
- Paleontology
Unexpected Archive: Mammoth hair yields ancient DNA
Hair from ancient mammoths contains enough genetic material to permit reconstruction of parts of the animal's genome.
- Math
Communities of Communities of …
A new approach to network theory focusing on the subcommunities within networks may shed light on everything from food webs to terrorist cells. It may even act as an oracle, helping scientists identify connections within a network they haven’t yet seen.
- Neuroscience
Breaking the Barrier
A technique combining ultrasound pulses with microbubbles may help scientists move therapeutic drugs across the brain’s protective divide.
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotics in infancy tied to asthma
Infants who get several courses of antibiotics before their first birthdays are more likely to develop asthma later.
- Health & Medicine
Phages break up plaques
Phages, viruses that infect bacteria, dissolve plaques in the brains of mice with an Alzheimer's-like disease.
- Health & Medicine
Sticky treatment for staph infections
Honey from New Zealand gums up bacteria, offering a potential new means of combating difficult-to-treat infections.
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Our Microbes, Ourselves
Trillions of microbes live in the human gut and skin, and they may be essential to health.
