Bordetella bronchiseptica coccobacilli bacteria…Say it 5 times fast!
Like all organisms, bacteria must compete for resources to survive, even if it means a fight to the death.
Continue reading… “Mortal Chemical Combat Typifies the World of Bacteria”
New technology reveals old Plaque Pandemics
An international team of scientists has traced major plague pandemics such as the Black Death back to their roots using DNA fingerprinting analysis.
Continue reading… “DNA Fingerprinting Traces Global Path of Plague”
Over millions of years, retroviruses, which insert their genetic material into the host genome as part of their replication, have left behind bits of their genetic material in vertebrate genomes. In a recent study, published July 29 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens, a team of researchers have now found that human and other vertebrate genomes also contain many ancient sequences from Ebola/Marburgviruses and Bornaviruses — two deadly virus families.
Continue reading… “Unexpected Viral ‘Fossils’ Found in Vertebrate Genomes”
Fungi have significant potential for “horizontal” gene transfer, a new study has shown, similar to the mechanisms that allow bacteria to evolve so quickly, become resistant to antibiotics and cause other serious problems.
Continue reading… “Fungi Can Change Quickly, Pass Along Infectious Ability”
Forensic scientists may soon have a valuable new item in their toolkits — a way to identify individuals using unique, telltale types of hand bacteria left behind on objects like keyboards and computer mice, says a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
Continue reading… “New Hand Bacteria Study Holds Promise for Forensics Identification”
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantra time and again. When it comes to carbon‹the “Most Wanted” element in terms of climate change‹nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it’s up to us to reduce. Scientists at Harvard Medical School are trying to meet this challenge by learning more about the carbon cycle, that is, the process by which carbon moves from the atmosphere into plants, oceans, soils, the earth’s crust, and back into the atmosphere again.
Continue reading… “How Ocean Bacterium Turns Carbon Into Fuel”
Scientists have long pondered the seeming contradiction that taking broad-spectrum antibiotics over a long period of time can lead to severe secondary bacterial infections. Now researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine may have figured out why.
Continue reading… “‘Good’ Bacteria Keep Immune System Primed to Fight Future Infections”
Hawaiian bobtail squid
Most humans are blissfully unaware that we owe our healthful existence to trillions of microbes that make their home in the nooks and crannies of the human body, primarily the gut.
Continue reading… “In Sync: Squid, Glowing Companions March in Genetic Harmony”
Researchers at UC San Diego who last year genetically engineered bacteria to keep track of time by turning on and off fluorescent proteins within their cells have taken another step toward the construction of a programmable genetic sensor. The scientists recently synchronized these bacterial “genetic clocks” to blink in unison and engineered the bacterial genes to alter their blinking rates when environmental conditions change.
Like savvy Wall Street money managers, bacteria hedge their bets to increase their chances of survival in uncertain times, strategically investing their biological resources to weather unpredictable environments.
Continue reading… “Bacteria ‘Invest’ Wisely to Survive Uncertain Times, Scientists Report”
Bacteria don’t have easy lives. In addition to mammalian immune systems that besiege the bugs, they have natural enemies called bacteriophages, viruses that kill half the bacteria on Earth every two days.
Continue reading… “Biological Basis of ‘Bacterial Immune System’ Discovered”
Food production of modern human societies is mostly based on large-scale monoculture crops, but it now appears that advanced insect societies have the same practice. Our societies took just ten thousand years of (mainly cultural) evolution to adopt this habit and we are far from convinced that it is sustainable. Farming ants and termites had tens of millions of years to evolve their fungus farming systems and here monocultures are apparently evolutionary stable.
Continue reading… “Termites Create Sustainable Monoculture Fungus Farming”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.
