Bacterial

Plants may have first been able to grow on land due to bacterial genes

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When aquatic plants first transitioned onto land, their success may have been due to genes they got from bacteria and fungi that let them take up nutrients from soil Life 1 March 2022 By Jake Buehler Plants may have taken root on land thanks to genes from bacteria Shutterstock/daniilphotos Around 500 million years ago, aquatic … Read more

There’s a Bunch of Bacteria Having ‘Sex’ in Your Gut, And It’s Wilder Than We Thought

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The human gut is the host of a rampant microscopic orgy. To survive, the microbes in our digestive tract are having ‘sex’ with each other on a regular basis, all in the name of swapping secrets on how to survive deadly doses of antibiotics.   A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign … Read more

The 3rd Leading Global Cause of Death Is Likely Not What You Think, New Study Reveals

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Antibiotic resistance is often seen as a ‘future problem’, but newly published data have revealed it’s affecting far, far more lives than you might imagine. In fact, the new estimates show that in 2019, there were 4.95 million deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance, making it the third leading cause of death worldwide.   Drugs … Read more

Special Phage Therapy Clears a Patient’s Resistant Infection After 798 Days

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After 700 days of antibiotic treatment, the infection of a 30-year-old bombing attack victim still raged. Tragically, the patient had suffered life-threatening injuries during the attacks at Brussels airport on 22 March 2016. Over the next three years, she faced numerous medical complications, as her fracture-related wound became infected with pan-drug-resistant bacteria, or what we … Read more

Scientists Spot Eerily Sophisticated Patterns in ‘Simple’ Bacteria Colonies

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Bacterial colonies can organize themselves into complex ring-like patterns which have an “intriguing similarity” to developing embryos and were thought to be unique to plants and animals, new research suggests.   Bacterial cells band together in clumps to form tightly packed colonies called biofilms that have a growing reputation for acting strangely like multicellular organisms. … Read more

Bacterial Builders Churn Out Lengthy Muscle Proteins

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Bacteria may soon be muscling in on new kinds of manufacturing. Researchers have developed a technique that uses the common bacterium Escherichia coli to synthetically produce a muscle protein called titin, which could someday build tough and pliable fibers. Uses could range from medical sutures to impact-resistant or biodegradable fabrics. The titin is dozens of … Read more