Plant signals trigger remarkable bacterial transformation

The cycad Cycas revoluta is a palm-like plant that grows on rocky coastal cliffs in the sub-tropics and tropics. It has a symbiotic relationship with the Nostoc species of bacteria that can convert nitrogen from the atmosphere ...

How a male-hating bacterium rejuvenates

A team from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University together with their Russian colleagues carried out genetic analysis of the symbiotic bacterium Wolbachia that prevents the birth and development of males in different species ...

How leaves talk to roots

New findings show that a micro RNA from the shoot keeps legume roots susceptible to symbiotic infection by downregulating a gene that would otherwise hinder root responses to symbiotic bacteria. These findings reveal what ...

How nutrients are removed in oxygen-depleted regions of the ocean

In the course of global climate change, scientists are observing the increase of low-oxygen areas in the ocean, also termed oxygen minimum zones (OMZs). Large-scale OMZs exist, for example, in the Pacific off the coast of ...

Bacteria ensure square meal for bloodsucking ticks

How do ticks live solely on blood? A study presented in Current Biology (May 31, 2018) has elucidated the crucial role played by symbiotic bacteria that synthesize B vitamins. These nutrients are scarcely found in the blood ...

Team publishes research on unusual gene evolution in bacteria

University of Montana researchers have made another discovery at the cellular level to help understand the basic processes of all life on our planet - this time within the unusual bacteria that has lived inside cicada insects ...

Microbial resident enables beetles to feed on a leafy diet

An international team including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology has described a bacterium residing in a species of leaf beetles which has an unexpected feature: it provides the beetle with the ...

Cilia: 'The bouncer' of bacteria

Imagine a club scene—a bouncer at a velvet rope selects which individuals get into the club. This, explains Eva Kanso, a professor of mechanical engineering at USC Viterbi School of Engineering, is what cilia do in an organism. ...

page 7 from 13