Living with Bacteria

Meet some of the people featured in the June 2019 issue of The Scientist.

Science doesn’t require faith, but fostering trust in its practitioners can help the public move past unfounded doubts.

Take a break from the bench to puzzle and peruse.

Kelp in warm, acidified waters develop blistered fronds—and the composition of microbial communities could help explain why, a study suggests.

Changes in the auditory environment as a result of herbivory could influence how animals communicate, and may have implications for sound-based monitoring of species.

Treating the microbial community residing on a painting with probiotics may offer a way to stave off biodegradation, a study suggests.

A new portable instrument could help to lure useful bugs in from the wild.

Optimized tweezers enable precise 3-D manipulations of a cell’s organelles.

The Microbiota Vault takes a holistic approach to preserving Earth’s microscopic diversity.

Scientists identify the coordinated sequence of pili movements that Pseudomonas aeruginosa use to move.

Chemical cues help Drosophila mask their eggs from predators.

An experiment delves into how the microbiome shapes immunity.

Developing computational tools to analyze the reams of microbial sequencing data his lab generates, the UC San Diego microbiologist is a pioneer of microbiome research.

The MIT associate professor wants to understand microbial communities in their ecological context.

New ways to search for druggable RNAs and matching small molecules

Diversity programs are shifting their focus from just providing academic support to creating a learning environment that is more inclusive of people of different backgrounds.

A new book about remarkable feats of migration by animals explores the front lines of research into how they do it.

Lymph from cattle proved more effective at inducing immunity to smallpox than the older, person-to-person method.

Symbiotic bacteria, metabolism, and stress pathways can all help animals tolerate, rather than succumb, to disease.

Antigens originating from the microbiome may trigger an autoimmune response.

Weird effects on the scale of subatomic particles may play roles in enzyme catalysis, photosynthesis, and avian magnetoreception.

Microscope-mounted magnets with computerized feedback control allow precision manipulations of intracellular objects.

Bacteria coordinate a pilus's movement based on touch.