Environment
News: These Special Sewage Bacteria Can Turn Dirty Water into Energy
Some bacteria can already do it—generate electric current, that is—and those microbes are called "electrogenic." Now, thanks to the work of a research group from the University of California, Santa Barbara, we know how to easily turn non-electrogenic bacteria into electricity producers.
News: Sponge Bacteria Clean Heavy Metals & Toxins Like Arsenic from Water, Saving Turtles & Humans Alike
Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment, but it is also one of the most commonly found heavy metals in wastewater, deposited there by inappropriate disposal and arsenical pesticides, for example.
News: Termite Guts May Hold the Key to More Efficient Biofuels
Termite poop and biofuels — what's the connection? New research into termites' intestinal comings and goings describes a process that may speed the development and lower the cost of fuels made from plant matter.
News: This Paper-Thin Foldable Battery Is Powered by Bacteria
In the perpetual search for a renewable and convenient energy source, our bacterial friends have once again stolen the limelight.
News: Like Peaches? Protective Virus Could Save Millions of Dollars in Fruit from Fire Blight
Peach trees and other related plants are susceptible to the devastation caused by fire blight, a contagious bacterial disease. Once contracted, infected trees have to be burned to contain the disease and prevent spread to nearby trees. Increasing resistance to antibiotic treatment has sent scientists in search of alternative ways to deal with the bacteria and prevent its catastrophic damage.
Bye Bye, OJ: How a Blue-Bellied Insect Helps Bacteria Kill Off Citrus Crops
A tiny louse is responsible for decimating the citrus industry. Diaphorina citri, the louse in question, better known as the Asian citrus psyllid, harbors and spreads the "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" bacteria that causes citrus greening disease.
News: How Researchers Could Use Bacteria to Determine Time of Death
When a dead body is discovered, finding out when the person died is just as important as finding out how the person died. Determining the time of death has always involved lots of complicated scientific detective work and less-than-reliable methods. However, a study by Nathan H. Lents, a molecular biologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, is the first of its kind to show how microbes colonize a body's ears and nose after death.
News: Melting Ice Sheets Are Releasing Toxins in Our Water — Bacteria Could Take Some of That Out of Play
Windborne microbes shifting in the snows of the great ice sheet of Greenland may be able to neutralize some of the industrial contaminants oozing out of the melting ice.
How Epidemics Happen: The Terrifying Reality of Superspreaders
Jostled in the airport, someone is coughing in line. The air looks empty but it is loaded with microbes that make their way into your body. You get sick. You give it to your family, and that's pretty much it. But what if you were so contagious that you spread it to your entire community and beyond?
News: Say Goodbye to Almonds—Common Pesticide Additive in Orchards Linked to Honey Bee Colony Collapse
The search for the causative agent of colony collapse—the mass die off of honey bees throughout the US and Europe—has escalated with increasing confusion lately. Everything from pesticides and stress to viruses and mites have been implicated, and some researchers think that many of these environmental factors work together to take down hives.
News: Extreme Cave-Dwelling Bacteria Found to Be Resistant to Antibiotics
One thousand feet under the ground, extremophile microbes that have not seen the light of day for four million years are giving up some fascinating facts to scientists who go the distance.
News: How a Vaccine Could Protect Florida's Orange Trees
A disease called "citrus greening" has devastated and permanently altered citrus production in the United States, but a vaccine that could protect orange trees may be part of a winning strategy to beat the bacteria that is killing the trees.
News: Bacteria Offer Low-Cost, High-Quality Help to Clean Drinking Water
Water makes up about 60% of your body weight. Whether you like it plain, flavored, bubbly, or in beverages or food, we all need water daily to avoid dehydration and stay healthy. For communities in need of clean drinking water, new research using bacteria may offer a simplified, lower-cost method for boosting potable water supplies.
News: Scientists Turn Bacteria into Mini Cyborg Solar Panels
Plants all around us capture sunlight every day and convert it to energy, making them a model of solar energy production. And while the energy they make may serve the needs of a plant, the process isn't efficient enough to generate power on a larger scale. So, scientists from the University of California found a way to treat bacteria with chemicals that turned them into photosynthesis machines, capable of generating products we can convert into food, fuels, and plastics.
Prime Directive: How NASA's Planetary Protection Officer Keeps Our Germs from Contaminating Other Planets (& Vice Versa)
On July 20, 1969, humans set foot on the moon for the first time. But some say our microbes beat us there. With the Space Age came new questions about microscopic invaders from outer space and concern about where we are leaving our microbial footprints. The questions are even more relevant today.
News: Hold That Breath — Fungus Goes Airborne Easier Than We Thought
Add breathing in your house as another possible danger to your health. If your home is sick, it's possible you could get sick too.
News: Microbots to the Rescue! Swimming Bots Kill Bad Water Microbes
Look no further than Flint, Michigan, to discover the serious consequences of contaminated drinking water. Around the world, water polluted by pathogens and toxins sickens people or cuts them off from safe drinking water. Looking for a solution, researchers created tiny, swimming robots that pack a powerful punch against waterborne pathogens.
News: Climate Change Might Stir Up Dangerous Dust Microbiome
Just like your gastrointestinal tract, and the soil we walk on — a dust storm has a collection of bacteria, fungi, and viruses all its own called a "dust microbiome."
News: Bye Bye, French Bread & Pasta—There's a Fungal Outbreak Killing Europe's Wheat Crops
We may not fully appreciate all the important roles wheat plays in our lives until it's gone—or at least, when it's in very short supply. What would a world be like without bread, cakes, cereal, pasta, or wheat beer? If the dire warnings about an impending stem rust fungus come to pass, we may know all too soon.
News: Ancient Fungus Gives Trees a Better Chance at Surviving Hotter Temperatures
A 6,000-year-old forest inhabitant awakens to find life in the forest around it in crisis. Plants, trees, animals, and birds are moving north to escape increasingly heated air, even as mass extinctions take place around the world. The inhabitant stirs and remembers it has lived this before and knows what to do.