Teaching a microbe to make fuel

(Phys.org) -- A humble soil bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha has a natural tendency, whenever it is stressed, to stop growing and put all its energy into making complex carbon compounds. Now scientists at MIT have taught ...

Revealing bacterial chainmail structure

An international team of scientists has uncovered the structure of the protective protein coat which surrounds many bacteria like a miniature suit of armour. Their research, which is published today in Nature, has far ranging ...

Mutant microbes test radiation resistance

Early Earth lacked an ozone layer to act as a shield against high-energy solar radiation, but microbes flourished by adapting to or finding other forms of protection from the higher ultraviolet radiation levels. Now researchers ...

Biofilm reorganization: Back to the theoretical drawing board

In a surprising new study, researchers using image-analysis methods similar to those employed in facial-recognition software have made a startling discovery that rules out the two main theories scientists had created to explain ...

An sRNA controls a bacterium's social life

For the first time, biologists have directly shown how spontaneous mutation of a small RNA (sRNA) regulatory molecule can provide an evolutionary advantage. Reporting in this week's Science, Indiana University Bloomington ...

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