MicrobeWorld

Drug successfully tested in mice; may be major advance as malaria has developed resistance to existing treatments

Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Medical Center have developed a drug that may represent one of the world's best hopes for treating and prevent... Read More

The bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens is a constant companion of some roundworms. These worms assault insect larvae, thereby infecting them with the bacteria; the pathogens then attack the cells of their victims with a deadly cocktail of various toxins. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of... Read More

Recently thousands of dead and decaying pigs were pulled from rivers in Shanghai and Jiaxing, China. Apparently farmers dumped the animals into the water after the pigs became ill, and porcine circovirus was subsequently detected in the in pig carcasses and in the water. Porcine circoviruses are... Read More

Infections caused by carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae can be impossible to treat. A family of drug-resistant bacteria that experts say kills up to 50 percent of people infected is spreading in Chicago and elsewhere, prompting doctors and public health officials to step up efforts to prot... Read More

Scientists have cracked a 35-year-old mystery about the workings of the natural motors that are serving as models for development of a futuristic genre of synthetic nanomotors that pump therapeutic DNA, RNA or drugs into individual diseased cells. Their report revealing the innermost mechanisms ... Read More

The first red alga genome has just been sequenced by an international team coordinated by CNRS and UPMC at the Station Biologique de Roscoff (Brittany), notably involving researchers from CEA-Genoscope[1], the universities of Lille 1 and Rennes 1 and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle[2]. ... Read More

When a phage invades a host’s premises, it delivers only its genome and perhaps a few specialized proteins needed immediately upon arrival. Its plan is simply to supervise production. The host is relied on to provide not only the raw materials and energy, but also the production equipment needed... Read More

Over the past year, a viral infection has infected 15 people — killing nine. All lived in the Middle East or Britain. The novel germ doe not yet have a formal name. It causes pneumonia, a type of severe lung infection. On Feb. 27, scientists from around the world met in Washington, D.C., to shar... Read More

The world's longest-running experiments remind us that science is a marathon, not a sprint. Although science is a long-term pursuit, research is often practised over short timescales: a discrete experiment or a self-contained project constrained by the length of a funding cycle. But some investi... Read More

For a while, Adam Martiny and some of his fellow scientists had suspected something was not right in how researchers understand the oceans. The object of their suspicion was something called the Redfield ratio, a principle stating that, when nutrients are not limiting, ocean microorganisms alway... Read More

Why should an organism kill itself when it could be having offspring? Now, researchers have shown that in bacteria, suicide can be worthwhile—and has no major downside. Scientists compared two strains of Escherichia coli bacteria, one that self-destructs when infected with a lethal virus and one... Read More

Doylestown Hospital on Tuesday unveiled its newest high-tech weapon, a machine that zaps everything in a room with ultraviolet light 25,000 times brighter than the sun's. It can penetrate the defenses of Clostridium difficile, wily bacteria that produce spores that can live for weeks and are har... Read More

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found that nearly 14 percent of land in the continental United States, or roughly the combined area of Texas and New Mexico, could be used for converting algae to transportation fuels.

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy estimat... Read More

A tiny molecular machine used by bacteria to kill attacking viruses could change the way that scientists edit the DNA of plants, animals and fungi, revolutionizing genetic engineering. The protein, called Cas9, is quite simply a way to more accurately cut a piece of DNA.

“This could significa... Read More

Researchers have found microbes in the deepest oceanic trench on Earth - the Mariana Trench, which is located at nearly 7 miles or 11 kilometers below sea level in the western Pacific.

The study of life in this inaccessible site revealed a community of bacteria that live in extreme pressures,... Read More

The cyanobacterium Synechocystis produces toxins that often lead to its own demise. The biologists Stefan Kopfmann and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hess from the University of Freiburg have determined the logic governing this mechanism. The cyanobacterium Synechocystis produces several toxins. However, mo... Read More

The efficiency of hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission by sexual activity remains controversial. We conducted a cross-sectional study of HCV-positive subjects and their partners to estimate the risk for HCV infection among monogamous heterosexual couples. A total of 500 anti–HCV-positive, human ... Read More

This is a movie by David Bella, Ph.D., at the University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research showing the results of an analysis of Adenovirus binding to blood coagulation factor X, performed in collaboration with Professor Andrew H Baker in the University of Glasgow.

The animation was creat... Read More

A rising percentage of parents say they won't have their teen daughters vaccinated to protect against the human papilloma virus, even though physicians are increasingly recommending adolescent vaccinations, a study by Mayo Clinic and others shows. More than 2 in 5 parents surveyed believe the HP... Read More

Sara Volz won the Intel Science Fair for her work on growing algae that's more efficient at making biofuels--and she does all her work in her bedroom.

Every year, the Intel Science Talent Search honors brilliant high school students for their contributions to the worlds of math and science. L... Read More