cyanobacteria

Injecting oxygen-generating algae into tadpoles allows brain activity to continue in the absence of oxygen, researchers find.

Researchers propose that some of the planet’s earliest photosynthesizers benefited from a slowing of the Earth’s rotation that allowed them to produce a surplus of oxygen and paved the way for more complex life.  

In a trio of studies, researchers follow up on a 40-year-old finding that certain bacteriophages replace adenine with so-called diaminopurine, perhaps to avoid host degradation.

After a nearly 30-year hunt, researchers have shown that a neurotoxin generated by cyanobacteria on invasive plants is responsible for eagle and waterbird deaths from vacuolar myelinopathy.

The discovery puts a nail in the coffin of a long-held assumption about the limits of where the essential process can occur.

Tests point to a toxic algal bloom that might have led to the unprecedented deaths of hundreds of African elephants in Botswana earlier this year, but the evidence isn’t conclusive.

Elevated levels of a neurotoxin in northeastern Brazil’s drinking water and a high incidence of microcephaly in the region led scientists to look for a link, and they found one.

Bacteria and sand form a strong building material.

Biological production of this greenhouse gas, once thought to be the reserve of anaerobic microbes, occurs in these widespread, photosynthesizing cyanobacteria.

Previously undetected cyanobacteria are symbionts of dinoflagellates.

Photosynthesis can happen in more than one way.  

Injecting photosynthetic microbes into oxygen-starved heart tissue can improve cardiac function in rodents. 

Metabolic activity, not light, drives the circadian clock in cyanobacteria.

Photosynthetic cyanobacteria sense light in much the same way as a human eyeball, scientists show.

Scientists establish a functional circadian rhythm in bacteria that don’t possess one naturally.

US dogs face a deadly threat from algae-spawned toxins lurking in lakes, but there may be an antidote.

A hidden toxin stalks marine mammals off the coast of California and kills dogs and cats farther inland.

Evolution of Y chromosome; delivering gene with “bionic ears”; diversity of an important cyanobacterium; charting genome-sequencing progress; blockbuster pharma deals

A marine cyanobacterium possesses astounding genomic diversity, yet still organizes into distinct subpopulations that have likely persisted for ages.