Climate change alters the hidden microbial food web in peatlands, study shows
The humble peat bog conjures images of a brown, soggy expanse. But it turns out to have a superpower in the fight against climate change.
The humble peat bog conjures images of a brown, soggy expanse. But it turns out to have a superpower in the fight against climate change.
Ecology
7 hours ago
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6
Some soil bacteria can acquire sets of genes that enable them to pump the heavy metal nickel out of their systems, a study has found. This enables the bacteria to not only thrive in otherwise toxic soils but help plants grow ...
Cell & Microbiology
8 hours ago
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6
A new study shows how heteroresistance, a transient resistance common in many bacteria, can act as a precursor to the development of antibiotic resistance. According to researchers at Uppsala University, this is the first ...
Evolution
12 hours ago
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24
An international team of biotechnologists and evolutionary specialists has discovered three types of bacteria in the human gut that help to break down cellulose. In their project, reported in the journal Science, the group ...
There is an urgent need for new antimicrobial strategies to keep pathogens in check. This applies specifically to Gram-negative bacteria, which are protected from antibiotic intervention by a thick second membrane.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 15, 2024
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Researchers from the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at Tel Aviv University have deciphered a novel complex decision-making process that helps viruses choose to turn nasty or stay friendly to their bacterial ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 13, 2024
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1
Given the worldwide prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria, the research community is on the lookout for alternative bactericidal treatment approaches. In a recent study, Japanese researchers have now compared bacteriophage-derived ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 12, 2024
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Antimicrobial resistance is a story of constantly moving parts and players. With every new or tweaked antibiotic or antimicrobial drug, the targeted pathogens begin the evolutionary dance of acquiring resistance, prompting ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 7, 2024
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5
Recent years have seen the rise of bacterial pathogens that have developed resistance to antibiotics. One such superbug, carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB), kills hundreds of critically ill patients in the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 5, 2024
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40
E. coli bacteria and an electronic device might seem to have little in common, but in a recent experiment, University of Maryland researchers linked them into the first closed-loop system able to communicate across the technological–biological ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 5, 2024
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1
Actinobacteria (high-G+C) Firmicutes (low-G+C) Tenericutes (no wall)
Aquificae Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Chlamydiae/Verrucomicrobia Deinococcus-Thermus Fusobacteria Gemmatimonadetes Nitrospirae Proteobacteria Spirochaetes Synergistetes
Acidobacteria Chloroflexi Chrysiogenetes Cyanobacteria Deferribacteres Dictyoglomi Fibrobacteres Planctomycetes Thermodesulfobacteria Thermotogae
The bacteria [bækˈtɪərɪə] (help·info) (singular: bacterium)[α] are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria are ubiquitous in every habitat on Earth, growing in soil, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, water, and deep in the Earth's crust, as well as in organic matter and the live bodies of plants and animals. There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh water; in all, there are approximately five nonillion (5×1030) bacteria on Earth, forming much of the world's biomass. Bacteria are vital in recycling nutrients, with many steps in nutrient cycles depending on these organisms, such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere and putrefaction. However, most bacteria have not been characterized, and only about half of the phyla of bacteria have species that can be grown in the laboratory. The study of bacteria is known as bacteriology, a branch of microbiology.
There are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells in the human flora of bacteria as there are human cells in the body, with large numbers of bacteria on the skin and as gut flora. The vast majority of the bacteria in the body are rendered harmless by the protective effects of the immune system, and a few are beneficial. However, a few species of bacteria are pathogenic and cause infectious diseases, including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy and bubonic plague. The most common fatal bacterial diseases are respiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million people a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. In developed countries, antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections and in agriculture, so antibiotic resistance is becoming common. In industry, bacteria are important in sewage treatment, the production of cheese and yoghurt through fermentation, as well as in biotechnology, and the manufacture of antibiotics and other chemicals.
Once regarded as plants constituting the class Schizomycetes, bacteria are now classified as prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and other eukaryotes, bacterial cells do not contain a nucleus and rarely harbour membrane-bound organelles. Although the term bacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after the discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotes consist of two very different groups of organisms that evolved independently from an ancient common ancestor. These evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea.
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