Microbes can influence evolution of their hosts

You are not just yourself. You are also the thousands of microbes that you carry. In fact, they represent an invisible majority that may be more you than you realize.

Ecological forces structure your body's personal mix of microbes

(Phys.org) —Environmental conditions have a much stronger influence on the mix of microbes living in various parts of your body than does competition between species. Instead of excluding each other, microbes that fiercely ...

Genome organization of organism reflects its 'hot' lifestyle

(Phys.org) —Microbial genomes have incredible functional and regulatory complexity, making them of great interest for potential environmental, energy, health, and industrial applications. In a study published in PLoS Genetics, ...

Study: Unexpected microbes fighting harmful greenhouse gas

The environment has a more formidable opponent than carbon dioxide. Another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, is 300 times more potent and also destroys the ozone layer each time it is released into the atmosphere through agricultural ...

New research identifies prime source of ocean methane

Up to 4 percent of the methane on Earth comes from the ocean's oxygen-rich waters, but scientists have been unable to identify the source of this potent greenhouse gas. Now researchers report that they have found the culprit: ...

Massive data for miniscule communities

It's relatively easy to collect massive amounts of data on microbes. But the files are so large that it takes days to simply transmit them to other researchers and months to analyze once they are received.

New discovery turns seaweed into biofuel in half the time

University of Illinois scientists have engineered a new strain of yeast that converts seaweed into biofuel in half the time it took just months ago. That's a process that's important outside the Corn Belt, said Yong-Su Jin, ...

Gene 'relocation' key to most evolutionary change in bacteria

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a new study, scientists at the University of Maryland and the Institut Pasteur show that bacteria evolve new abilities, such as antibiotic resistance, predominantly by acquiring genes from other bacteria.

page 3 from 9