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A yellow, hairy caterpillar is sitting on a green leaf off a thin plant stem.
Deciphering Plants’ Biochemical Messages
Esther Ngumbi believes that chemical signals between plants, microbes, and insects hold the key to secure and sustainable food production.
Deciphering Plants’ Biochemical Messages
Deciphering Plants’ Biochemical Messages

Esther Ngumbi believes that chemical signals between plants, microbes, and insects hold the key to secure and sustainable food production.

Esther Ngumbi believes that chemical signals between plants, microbes, and insects hold the key to secure and sustainable food production.

soil, microbiology

The Influence of Soil on Immune Health
Jef Akst | Jan 8, 2020 | 6 min read
Recent work in humans and mice highlights how exposure to environmental microbes helps protect against allergies and other inflammatory diseases.
Life Rides the Wind in the Desert
Ashley Yeager | Dec 1, 2019 | 4 min read
As the afternoon breezes blow harder in the Atacama Desert—a place so desolate it’s used as a model of Mars—more microbes move into its driest regions.
fusarium oxysporum gold oxidation australia
Fungus Found in Australian Soil Can Oxidize Gold
Kerry Grens | May 24, 2019 | 1 min read
The chemical process may make the metal more soluble and move it closer to the Earth’s surface.
Australian Scientist and Her Sister Found Dead in Argentina
Ashley Yeager | Jan 28, 2019 | 2 min read
The nephew of Lily Pereg, a microbial ecologist at the University of New England in Australia, has been arrested on homicide charges.
Infographic: Gassy Genes
Ruth Williams | May 31, 2018 | 1 min read

Soil scientists get bacteria to report on what their neighbors are up to.

How Plant-Soil Feedback Affects Ecological Diversity
Ashley P. Taylor | Jan 12, 2017 | 4 min read
Researchers examine how underground microbes and nutrients affect plant populations.
Donor-Soil Microbes Drive Ecosystem Restoration
Tracy Vence | Jul 11, 2016 | 2 min read
Excavating existing topsoil and adding donor soil, researchers revitalized degraded farmland in the span of six years.
Soil Bacteria Live on Wine Grapes
Kerry Grens | Mar 25, 2015 | 1 min read
The earthiness of Merlot may have to do with grapevine-dwelling microbiota.
Soil Bacteria May “Eat” Antibiotics
Dan Cossins | Dec 10, 2012 | 2 min read
Long-term exposure to antibiotics from agricultural run off may encourage the evolution of soil bacteria that break down and consume the antibacterial agents.
Microbial Awakening
Hayley Dunning | Nov 1, 2012 | 2 min read
Successive awakening of soil microbes drives a huge pulse of CO2 following the first rain after a dry summer.
Down and Dirty
Amy Coombs | Sep 1, 2012 | 4 min read
Diverse plant communities create a disease-fighting "soil genotype."
Soil Harbors Antibiotic Resistance
Ed Yong | Aug 30, 2012 | 3 min read
Identical resistance genes in soil and clinical bacteria hint at dangerous genetic arms trade that is aggravating the antibiotic-resistance crisis.
The Ecology of Fear
Edyta Zielinska | Jun 15, 2012 | 1 min read
Grasshoppers in fear of predation die with less nitrogen in their bodies than unstressed grasshoppers, which can affect soil ecology.
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