Computational 'match game' identifies potential antibiotics

Computational biologists at Carnegie Mellon University have devised a software tool that can play a high-speed "Match Game" to identify bioactive molecules and the microbial genes that produce them so they can be evaluated ...

Spider silk is created by adding spider DNA to microbes

Did you know that female spiders can weave seven different types of silk? And that, by mimicking spiders, humans have learned to make a silken material that is almost as strong as spiderweb?

Using recent gene flow to define microbe populations

Identifying species among plants and animals has been a full-time occupation for some biologists, but the task is even more daunting for the myriad microbes that inhabit the planet. Now, MIT researchers have developed a simple ...

The expanding universe of methane metabolisms in archaea

Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Billions of years ago, methane-producing archaea likely played a key role in determining the composition of the Earth's atmosphere and regulating the global ...

Defining a pan-genome for Antarctic archaea

Haloarchaea flourish in hypersaline environments, and researchers are interested in learning how these microbes have learned to adapt from marine to hypersaline conditions by studying the microbial communities in Antarctic ...

Why do some microbes live in your gut while others don't?

Trillions of tiny microbes and bacteria live in your gut, each with their own set of genes. These gut microbes can have both beneficial and harmful effects on your health, from protecting you against inflammation to causing ...

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