5,519 results
- Life
Enter the Virosphere
As evidence of the influence of viruses escalates, appreciation of these master manipulators grows.
- Ecosystems
From sea to squid, thanks to slime
Scientists have revealed new details about the genes — and the goo — that enable luminescent bacteria to colonize their symbiotic marine partner.
- Humans
BP spill: Gulf is primed to heal, but . . .
Every day, Mother Nature burps another 1,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, along with additional quantities of natural gas. Normally, these hydrocarbons don’t stick around long because local bacteria have evolved to eat them about as fast as they appear. Which is potentially good news, she explained in testimony during a pair of June 9 House subcommittee events on Capitol Hill, because those bugs are now in place to begin chowing down on the oil and gas entering the Gulf from BP's damaged Deepwater Horizon well.
- Space
Life in the sticky lane
Tropical asphalt lake could be analog for extraterrestrial microbial habitat.
- Health & Medicine
Docs writing fewer scripts
The number of antibiotic prescriptions for respiratory infections has declined since the mid-1990s, a new study shows.
- Animals
Oops, missed that fossil iridescence
Nanostructures on a preserved feather offer the first fossil evidence of bird colors not from pigments, a new study says.
- Humans
Mercury surprise: Rice can be risky
A new study out of China shows that for millions of people at risk of eating toxic amounts of mercury-laced food, fish isn't the problem. Rice is.
- Space
Famous Martian meteorite younger than thought
The famous fragment of Mars, once proposed to hold signs of extraterrestrial life, is still pretty old. But the rock appears to have formed about 400 million years later than earlier analyses indicated.
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria that do logic
A team engineers microbes to perform AND, OR, NAND and NOR logic operations.
- Chemistry
Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for ribosome research
Ada Yonath, Thomas Steitz and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan will share the prize for unmasking the structure of the ribosome.
- Chemistry
Skin as a source of drug pollution
Traces of over-the-counter and prescription meds taint the environment. The presumption Ì and it's a good one Ì has been that most of these residues come from the urine and solid wastes excreted by treated patients. But in some instances, a leading source of a drug may be skin Ì either because the medicine was applied there or because people sweat it out.
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria help themselves in damaged lungs
An antibiotic produced by a bacterium acts as a molecular snorkel to help with breathing. The bacterium infects and kills many people with cystic fibrosis, and plugging the snorkel could lead to treatments.
