Tiny aquatic organisms known as "water fleas" play an important role in carrying bacteria to lake and ocean habitats that are otherwise inaccessible due to stratified density boundaries. For animals as small as bacteria, the boundary between water masses of different temperature and salinity may as well be a brick wall.

Viruses can wreak havoc on bacteria as well as humans and, just like us, bacteria have their own defense system in place. Uncovering the workings of the bacterial "immune system" could be used to keep industrial microbes at peak performance.

Researchers from Northwestern University, Princeton, and Argonne National Laboratory used bacteria swimming in liquid to turn tiny gears suspended in the same medium. Various gear designs have already been developed (side image) that can harness the power of the bacteria. We recently reported on a project out of the University of Rome that has achieved what seems like the same feat. If it proves to be practical, this technology may one day power implantable medical microdevices.

Variation in our microbial inhabitants could help tailor efforts to treat illness.

The taurine amino-acid derivative, taurolidine, bis-(1,1-dioxoperhydro-1,2,4-thiabiazinyl–4)methane, shows broad antibacterial action against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, mycobacteria and some clinically relevant fungi.

Viruses can wreak havoc on bacteria as well as humans and, just like us, bacteria have their own defense system in place. Uncovering the workings of the bacterial "immune system" could be used to keep industrial microbes at peak performance.

What germs populate the hands may be as unique as fingerprints

Katrine Mellersh, Durham

Lots of chemicals kill bacteria (bacteriocidal compounds), or slow down their replication (bacteriostatic compounds), for example bleach or cyanide. The trick is finding those that don’t do the same to humans. These ‘antibiotics’ can work in many ways: they simply need to disrupt something specific to bacterial biochemistry.

What germs populate the hands may be as unique as fingerprints

Researchers uncover nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the ants' gardens [Read more]

Cigarettes are massive germ factories that may expose users and passersby to a swarm of disease-causing bacteria, a study shows.

Variation in our microbial inhabitants could help tailor efforts to treat illness. via Technology Review: You Are Your Bacteria.

Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could increase learning behavior, according to new research.

Research presented today sheds new light on the role bacteria in the digestive tract may play in obesity. The studies, which were presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, paint a picture that may be more complex than originally thought.
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The bacteria responsible for most cases of food poisoning in the U.S. has been turned into an efficient biological factory to make chemicals , medicines and, now, fuels. Chemical engineer Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have manipulated the genetic code of Escherichia coli , a common gut bacteria, so that it can chew up plant-derived sugar to produce diesel and other hydrocarbons, according to results published in the January 28 issue of Nature .

(American Society for Microbiology) Research presented today sheds new light on the role bacteria in the digestive tract may play in obesity. The studies, which were presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, paint a picture that may be more complex than originally thought.

Once you’ve made the decision to encase a few men in a metal pod and shoot the vessel into space, what you don’t want is to have something they eat make them sick. Astronauts in space already have suppressed immune systems, and the added complications of food poisoning and its attendant symptoms—dehydration, diarrhea—when both water and privacy are limited likely goes without saying. That’s why, in the late 1950s, just as NASA was embarking on the era of manned space flight, the agency went to its food supplier, Pillsbury, with a request: ensure that the food we’re feeding astronauts won’t have enough bacteria and other contaminants to make our astronauts sick. Pillsbury came through, crafting a science-based system that, for the first time, examined step-by-step how food was made, rather than the final product, with a focus on the riskiest ingredients and processes. By 1959, the problem of food-sickened astronauts was effectively kicked.

Financial regulators could learn a thing or two from humble micro-organisms and the scientists who study them, says Harvey Rubin

Financial regulators could learn a thing or two from humble micro-organisms and the scientists who study them, says Harvey Rubin

Harmful pathogens travel far and wide on islands of fish poop and other detritus

Viruses of soil bacteria (phages) evolve to improve their ability to infect the bacterial hosts that surround them. This is shown in a new study. Phages appear to be better able to infect bacteria from the same small soil sample than bacteria from just a few centimeters away. Evolution can therefore restructure ecosystems on a very small scale.

Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could increase learning behavior, according to new research.

It seems like pee, or more specifically urea, is becoming quite the sustainable ingredient.  Beyond being tapped as a good source of hydrogen, it's powering batteries and is now being used to make sustainable bricks.

Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could increase learning behavior, according to new research.

Financial regulators could learn a thing or two from humble micro-organisms and the scientists who study them, says Harvey Rubin

Because genetically monomorphic bacterial pathogens harbour little DNA sequence diversity, most current genotyping techniques used to study the epidemiology of these organisms are based on mobile or repetitive genetic elements. Molecular markers commonly used in these bacteria include Clustered Regulatory Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and Variable Number Tandem Repeats (VNTR). These methods are also increasingly being applied to phylogenetic and population genetic studies. Using the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) as a model, we evaluated the phylogenetic accuracy of CRISPR- and VNTR-based genotyping, which in MTBC are known as spoligotyping and Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units (MIRU)-VNTR-typing, respectively.

Bacteria on skin's surface plays vital role in preventing inflammation and maintaining healthy skin, Nature Medicine.