5,519 results
- Health & Medicine
The sour side of artificial sweeteners
A new study found that saccharin alters the gut microbiome of mice and produces insulin resistance, but it’s not the first to show the sour side of diet drinks.
- Life
Here’s the poop on getting your gut microbiome analyzed
One Science News writer donated her used toilet paper for science and learned that microbiome research is as uncharted as the Wild West.
- Life
In battle to shape immunity, environment often beats genes
The environment, especially microbes, shapes immune system reactions more than genes do.
- Life
Chemical evidence paved way for discovery of early life
The discovery in 1964 of compounds related to chlorophyll in billion-year-old rocks pushed back the timing of life’s origins.
- Life
Bacteria can cause pain on their own
Microbes caused discomfort in mice by activating nerves, not the immune system.
- Life
Genetic mutation quenches quantum quirk in algae
Studying algae that can and cannot use quantum coherence to harvest light could lead to better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices.
- Life
‘The Amoeba in the Room’ uncloaks a hidden realm of tiny life
Mycologist Nicholas Money reveals the secret (and dramatic) lives of amoebas, bacteria, fungi and other often-overlooked microbes in The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes.
- Oceans
Saharan dust explains Bahamas’ paradoxical existence
Windswept dust from the Sahara Desert may fertilize bacteria that built the Bahamas.
- Health & Medicine
Introducing the first bank of feces
A new nonprofit called OpenBiome is hoping to do for fecal transplants what blood banks have done for transfusions. It’s a kind of Brown Cross.
- Health & Medicine
Good bacteria from poop stop resistant infection
Pills fashioned from beneficial microbes in feces overcome C. difficile infections.
- Microbes
A newfound respect for the microbial world
Despite what many people think about humans’ place in the scheme of things, scientists are finding more evidence that we live in a world of microbes.
- Life
Starchy foods more filling than fiber, lab tests suggest
Tests of gut microbe digestion of potato starch and fiber suggest that moving away from grass-heavy ancestral diets may not be the reason for obesity epidemic.
