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Super Natural Bacteria

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Bacteria Are Evolving To Eat The Plastic We Dump Into The Oceans. ?articles. How one bacterium turns water into ice at nonfreezing temperatures FLICKR, JAMES MANNPseudomonas syringae uses a special cell-wall protein as a mold for arranging water molecules into ice, even at temperatures above water’s normal freezing point, according to a study published last week (April 22) in Science Advances.


Researchers Discover Bacteria That Produces Pure Gold. Bacteria eats poison, poops out gold The gold you see in the photo above was not found in a river or a mine.

Researchers Discover Bacteria That Produces Pure Gold

It was produced by a bacteria that, according to researchers at Michigan State University, can survive in extreme toxic environments and create 24-karat gold nuggets. Pure gold. Maybe this critter can save us all from the global economic crisis? Bacteria Can Make Zero-Viscosity Superfluids. Bacteria can thin liquids to make them flow more easily.

Bacteria Can Make Zero-Viscosity Superfluids

Astonishingly, they can do this to the point where the liquid they are swimming in becomes a superfluid, something with zero viscosity – a phenomenon previously only witnessed under extreme conditions, such as temperatures close to absolute zero. For the study, Dr. Scientists Find Bacteria That "Breathe" Uranium. Evolutionary Link to Complex Cells Discovered. Few areas in biology are as contentiously debated as how simple cells such as bacteria evolved into complex eukaryotic cells that comprise all of the species within the animal kingdom.

Evolutionary Link to Complex Cells Discovered

However, a new discovery from scientists at Uppsala University in Sweden could represent the missing link to complex life. When Archea burst onto the biological scene more than forty years ago, the scientific community was stunned that it represented a new and separate branch in the evolutionary tree of life. Despite their simplistic appearance, researchers found that these organisms had more in common with eukaryotes than simple bacteria—a conundrum that scientists have wrestled with for decades. Although, this current discovery of a new group of Archea, called Lokiarcheaota (Loki for short), has researchers hypothesizing that these organisms may have been part of the bridge to greater cell complexity.

Once obtaining samples of Loki, Dr. How microbes define, shape — and might even heal us. As both a scientist and a human being, I am continually awestruck by discoveries about the power of the microbiome to define and shape us.

How microbes define, shape — and might even heal us

But what excites me most is the very real prospect that, as we come to better understand and even influence the microbiome, it could have the power to heal us. We’re already starting to link our microbes to a wide spectrum of specific diseases, from the obvious — like infectious diseases and inflammatory bowel disease — to surprising ones such as multiple sclerosis, autism, and depression. It’s worth noting that just because we know a microbe is involved in a specific disease, it doesn’t mean the answer — or the cure — is to eliminate that microbe. Researchers Image What They Believe To Be Smallest Life Possible. Prokaryotes are generally 10 times smaller than eukaryotic cells, but researchers found evidence of bacteria even smaller than that.

Researchers Image What They Believe To Be Smallest Life Possible

In fact, they believe these types of bacteria could be the smallest form of life physically possible. A new paper published in Nature Communications describes the detailed microscopy techniques used to analyze the bacteria. “These newly described ultra-small bacteria are an example of a subset of the microbial life on earth that we know almost nothing about,” senior author Jill Banfield from University of California, Berkeley said in a press release. So exactly how small is “ultra-small”? Nitrogen-Fed Bacteria Could Power Our Future. A bacterium that doesn't need its nitrogen preprocessed could breathe new life into environmentally friendly ethanol production, turning mowing the lawn from a chore into an income source.

Nitrogen-Fed Bacteria Could Power Our Future

Most ethanol is currently produced from corn or sugar, competing with food for the raw materials while also combating rising prices, among other problems. If the transportation systems of the future are to be powered by low carbon biofuels, we need something better. Cellulosic ethanol is widely promoted as the great hope. Vast quantities of cellulose and lignin produced by grasses rot around the world every day. Scientists Discover Microbes That Have Remained Essentially Unchanged For 2 Billion Years. A team of scientists has discovered a remarkable type of deep-sea bacterium that appears to have remained essentially unchanged for over 2 billion years.

Scientists Discover Microbes That Have Remained Essentially Unchanged For 2 Billion Years

To put that into perspective, that’s almost half the age of our planet. Interestingly, rather than contradicting Darwin’s theory of evolution, this example of extreme stasis actually lends support to Darwinian evolution. As described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, the discovery was made after UCLA scientists examined ancient communities of fossil bacteria preserved in 1.8-billion-year-old rock from the coast of Western Australia. Using a combination of spectroscopic and microscopic techniques, the researchers were able to gain an insight into the composition and chemistry of the rocks, and also produce 3D images of the microbes inside. Scientists Reveal How Microbe 'Eats' Electricity. Some microbes, simple as they may be, have an ability to gather energy from extreme sources like sulfur, formic acid, minerals, and... electricity?

Scientists Reveal How Microbe 'Eats' Electricity

Yes, electricity. A team led by Peter Girguis from Harvard has discovered how a certain bacteria gets its energetic needs from electrons pulled from the environment. Three scientists on how the microbiome shapes our world. You are never really alone.

Three scientists on how the microbiome shapes our world

On your skin, in your nose, in every inch of your personal space, you are accompanied by trillions of tiny organisms. Collectively, these microorganisms are known as the microbiome — the complex ecosystem of microbes that share and shape our world. Yet the quest to understand the microbiome is still in its infancy. What’s the role of the microbiome in human health and wellbeing? Bonnie Bassler: How bacteria "talk" Strange Bacteria Dine on Electricity and Link Up to Form Biowires. All living organisms need energy. Most animals get their energy by eating other organisms.

Plants manufacture energy from sunlight. Now, scientists are finding a strange form of bacterial life that dines on unadulterated electricity. But the fact the bacteria live on electricity isn’t the weird part. The Gut Microbe That Protects Against Peanut Allergies. The presence of a common gut microbe called Clostridia protects mice against peanut sensitization by keeping the allergens from entering their bloodstream, according to findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.

In the U.S., food allergy rates among children rose about 50 percent between 1997 and 2011. We don’t know what causes food allergies, though numerous studies hint that recent changes in diet and hygiene (and the use of antibiotics and antimicrobial this and that) have altered the natural community of microorganisms in our gastrointestinal tracts -- increasing our susceptibility to food allergies. To see how altered microbiota affect immune responses to food, a team led by Cathryn Nagler from the University of Chicago exposed three groups of mice to peanut allergens: germ-free mice without any resident bacteria, mice given antibiotics as newborns to reduce their GI bacteria, and control mice with a normal cohort of GI bacteria.

Image: U.S. Electric Bacteria Eat Electrons. When we eat, our cells break down sugars, while their excess electrons flow through a series of chemical reactions until they’re passed onto oxygen. This process generates the energy molecule ATP, vital to nearly all living things.