Natural soil bacteria could be used to stabilize buildings against earthquakes, turning loose sand around the building’s foundations into sandstone, say researchers at University of California – Davis. An article describing their work appears in the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. Soils behave very differently during an earthquake, with sandy soils adopting characteristics more […]
The evolutionary advantage that magnetic bacteria enjoy has always been something of a conundrum, but now, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Purdue University have shed at least some light on the mystery. Their description of how being magnetic assists the bacteria to navigate appears in theBiophysical Journal. Found in a variety of […]
Bioscientists at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom have demonstrated a reactor that uses hydrogen-producing bacteria and sugar waste to generate electricity via a fuel cell. The researchers involved say the technology could also be used to power hydrogen-fuelled vehicles. Interestingly, the project used waste products, in this case diluted nougat and caramel […]
Destroy all bacteria, bacteria are bad; goes the mantra of mothers everywhere and the cleaning product industry. But they could be incorrect, says Stanford University microbiologist Stanley Falkow. In an essay in the latest issue of the journal Cell, he canvases the intriguing idea that persistent bacterial and viral infections may have very real health […]
‘ Horror stories of harmful bacteria living on surfaces in public places are the bread-and-butter of scare-mongering television, but is there any scientific evidence to support the claim that these invisible microbes can do us serious harm? Well, yes and no. According to a recent study, conducted by the Korean Consumer Protection Board, which examined […]
The diversity of soil bacteria in the otherwise species-rich Amazon is more like a desert, while paradoxically, the arid desert is teeming with microbial organisms. These surprising findings, reported in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from the first-ever continental-scale genetic survey of soil bacteria. The survey revealed that the primary factor that […]
The pressures to evolve antibiotic resistance and other new abilities in response to a changing environment, force bacteria to “steal” genetic information from other better-adapted types of bacteria through the bacterial equivalent of sex, known as horizontal gene transfer. This lets the bacteria evolve the networks of chemical reactions that enable them to do new […]
Scientists are starting trials to see if a genetically modified form of the bacteria E. coli could be used to make succinate, a key ingredient of many plastics, drugs, solvents and food additives. With fossil fuel reserves dwindling, finding replacements for key chemicals previously extracted from fossil fuels is a matter of some urgency for […]
