microorganisms, microbiology

The first evidence of biologically produced elemental carbon inspires more questions than answers.  

View the top three winners of this year’s Nikon Small World in Motion Competition.

We should take comfort in the fact that life on Earth had such unassuming, shared beginnings.

Scientists work out the specific genes and biochemical steps required for digesting the very drugs designed to kill microbes.

A molecule produced by a strain of Staphylococcus epidermis interferes with DNA synthesis.

Scientists are beginning to unravel the ways in which we develop a healthy relationship with the bugs in our bodies.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researcher’s work will help predict how the Arctic is responding to climate change—and the global effects of those changes.

Brazilian researchers report a relatively large diversity of fungi in marine ecosystems surrounding Antarctica, but warn that climate change could bring unpleasant surprises.

The once fringe idea is gaining traction among the scientific community.

At Harvard University the chemical biologist looks for new metabolic pathways to investigate how gut bacteria interact with one another and their hosts.

The discovery of peptides, enzymes, and other gene products that confer antibiotic resistance could give clues to how it develops.

Bathyarchaeota undergo acetogenesis, generating organic carbon below the seafloor.

The largely overlooked resident fungal community plays a critical role in human health and disease.

Diverse fungal species live in and on the human body.

Next-generation sequencing has identified scores of new microorganisms, but getting even abundant bacterial species to grow in the lab has proven challenging.

The fungal and bacterial communities in household dust can reveal some details about a building’s inhabitants.

In some pathogenic bacteria, certain antibiotic resistance–associated mutations may also confer an unexpected growth advantage.

Extremophiles should not be viewed through an anthropocentric lens; what’s extreme for us may be a perfectly comfortable environment for a microbe.