5,519 results
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Bacteria, this spud’s for you
A compound in potato extracts stops bacteria from sticking to their targeted cells.
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Do Antibodies Pack a Deadly Punch?
These immune molecules may directly kill, not just tag, microbes.
- Life
All the World’s a Phage
There are an amazing number of bacteriophages—viruses that kill bacteria—in the world.
- Tech
Sweet-toothed microbe tapped for power
Using a newly discovered bacterium that both frees electrons from sugars and injects those charges straight into electric circuits, scientists have created a fuel cell that converts carbohydrates to electricity with extraordinary efficiency.
- Materials Science
Nanowires grow on viral templates
Researchers are using viruses to assemble semiconducting nanowires—the building blocks of future electronic circuits.
- Tech
A Breath of Fresh Air: Bacteria rid sewage of its stink
Wastewater-treatment plants can use hydrogen sulfide-degrading bacteria instead of chemicals to reduce odors.
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Smoking out microbes
The addictive compound nicotine kills bacteria, which may explain why smokers get lung disease.
- Earth
Suspended Drugs: Antibiotics fed to animals drift in air
Borne on dust floating in and around farm buildings, antibiotics given to animals may later be inhaled by people—with possibly detrimental health effects.
- Earth
Strange crystal birth found in mine
Deep in a Wisconsin mine, researchers have uncovered a new way for crystals to grow in nature.
- Health & Medicine
McDonald’s Cutback in Antibiotics Use Could Reduce Drug-Resistant Bacteria
The fast-food chain McDonald’s announced on June 19 that it will stop its farms under contract from feeding chicken, cattle, and pigs certain antibiotics intended to accelerate the animals’ growth. That step might slow or reverse the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can infect people, scientists say. HAPPIER MEAL. Coming soon to a McDonald’s near […]
- Earth
When testosterone gets down and dirty
Testosterone excreted by livestock can pass through soils, which may explain new findings of fish-altering hormonal activity in water downstream of cattle feedlots.
- Planetary Science
Martian Methane: Carbon compound hints at life
The presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere spotlights the possibility that there might be primitive life on the Red Planet.
