A new soil amoeba species discovered in the 'Siberian jungle'

Scientists from St Petersburg University, together with colleagues from Tomsk and Novosibirsk, have discovered a new species of soil amoeba Leptomyxa silvatica n. sp. in Chernevaya taiga located in the south of Western Siberia.

How many protozoa are in the water we drink?

Researchers from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) have analysed drinking water and detected oocysts of Cryptosporidium and cysts of Giardia, two protozoa that cause outbreaks of diarrhoea in humans. The levels detected ...

Pathogenic bacteria train their defence in lakes and oceans

Peter Mathisen at Umeå University has found links between the aquatic environment and the spreading of diseases such as tularaemia. The results indicate that aquatic environments act as "gyms" for bacteria, where the presence ...

New gut bacterium discovered in termite's digestion of wood

When termites munch on wood, the small bits are delivered to feed a community of unique microbes living in their guts, and in a complex process involving multiple steps, these microbes turn the hard, fibrous material into ...

Why crop rotation works

Crop rotation has been used since Roman times to improve plant nutrition and to control the spread of disease. A new study to be published in Nature's 'The ISME Journal' reveals the profound effect it has on enriching soil ...

Understanding microbes blowing in the wind

With help from a wind tunnel and the latest DNA technology, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are shedding light on the travel patterns of microbes in soils carried off by strong winds. The work has implications ...

Algae held captive and genes stolen in crime of evolution

Microscopic animals held algae captive and stole their genes for energy production, thereby evolving into a new and more powerful species many millions of years ago reveals a new study published today in the journal Nature.

Scientists reclassify eukaryotic microorganisms

One of the biggest scientific challenges is the classification of the natural world, especially the protists, which are eukaryotic microorganisms. While the classification proposed by Sina Adl et al. (2005) was conservative ...

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