Microbes
- Paleontology
Microbes indicted in ancient mass extinction
About 252 million years ago an estimated 96 percent of all species were wiped from Earth, and now scientists have a new suspect in the killing — methane-belching microbes.
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- Health & Medicine
Imbalance in gut bacteria may play role in Crohn’s disease
Identifying the onset of Crohn’s disease may best be done by looking at bacteria in the cellular linings intestinal tissue.
- Microbes
Power-packed bacterial spores generate electricity
With mighty bursts of rehydration, bacterial spores offer a new source of renewable energy.
- Animals
It doesn’t always take wings to fly high
Microbes, bees, termites and geese have been clocked at high altitudes, where air density and oxygen are low.
- Health & Medicine
H7N9 flu makes a comeback
Scientists warn that the risk that the illness could spread remains.
- Genetics
Microbe and human genes influence stomach cancer risk
When genes of the bacterium and its human host evolve together, the strain is less harmful than that same strain in a person whose ancestors didn't encounter that particular microbe.
- Life
Marine microbes shed packets of DNA, nutrients
The world’s most abundant marine microorganism, the photosynthetic bacteria Prochlorococcus, spits out nutrient-rich vesicles into ocean waters, perhaps for genetic exchange or as a survival mechanism.
- Microbes
Me and my microbiome
Tina Hesman Saey tries out new services offering clients a peek at their own bacteria.
- Microbes
Gut bacteria respect diets, not borders
Malawian and Guahibo gut microbiomes resembled those of herbivorous mammals, while American guts were more similar to carnivores’.
- Microbes
Microscopic menagerie
The microbes dwelling in and on multicellular organisms should be viewed as evolutionarily inseparable from their hosts, some biologists argue.
- Humans
Mother lode
Certain sugar molecules in human breast milk do more to foster beneficial microbes, and banish harmful ones, than they do to nourish newborns.
