Facing starvation and stress conditions, some bacteria enter a dormant state in which life processes stop. Shutting down into a deep dormancy allows these cells, called spores, to withstand punishing extremes of heat, pressure ...
Clusters of microscopic bacteria exist all around us. These invisible communities, known as biofilms, are found in habitats ranging from our skin surface to sewer pipes and play integral roles in environments spanning healthcare ...
Over the past several years, research from University of California San Diego biologist Gürol Süel's laboratory has uncovered a series of remarkable features exhibited by clusters of bacteria that live together in communities ...
Bacteria is all around us—not just in bathrooms or kitchen counters, but also inside our bodies, including in tumors, where microbiota often flourish. These 'small ecologies' can hold the key to cancer drug therapies and ...
The ability to detect the growth of a bacterial colony by monitoring changes in impedance (a measure of resistance) across time reflects the impressive scientific progress connecting bacterial behavior with electrodes via ...
A good indicator of dysregulation in live cells is a change in their RNA expression. MicroRNA (miRNA), a special type of RNA, is considered a biomarker for carcinogenic cells. A team of scientists from China has found a way ...
Microbial communities inhabit every ecosystem on Earth, from soil to rivers to the human gut. While monoclonal cultures often exist in labs, in the real world, many different microbial species inhabit the same space. Researchers ...
Understanding the factors that control aging has been one of humanity's endless pursuits, from the mystical fountain of youth to practical healthful regimens to prolong life expectancy.
Rice University bioengineers who specialize in creating tools for synthetic biology have unveiled the latest version of their "biofunction generator and "bioscilloscope," an optogenetic platform that uses light to activate ...
A UC San Diego study of the underground "architecture" of harvester ant nests has found that the more connected the chambers an ant colony builds near the surface entrance, the faster the ants are able to collect nearby sources ...
