Bacteria

This is the fourth time this new antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been detected domestically

Woman infected with microbes that fight a last-line-of-defense drug; common infections could become untreatable

The miraculous recovery of a coral and the gargantuan range of a lichen may both result from the surprising evolutionary advantages their "alternative" lifestyles give them

A study published last week in the journal Clinical Infectious Disease found that Iowa pig farm workers were six times more likely than non-pig farmers to carry multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S.

Like a steaming pile of lava or the soggy soil below a melting glacier, the freshly scrubbed hull of a ship is a magnet for new life.

Recently the United Nations warned that the world could suffer a 40 percent shortfall in water by 2030 unless countries dramatically cut consumption.

Today, after more than three years, I must bid farewell to Octopus Chronicles on ScientificAmerican.com. It has been a wild, weird, and fun run.

As many mysteries as the octopus holds—its comprehensive camouflage, smart suckers, agile brain—its genome is surely holding many more (including how it can regenerate its arms—suckers, nerves and all).

Bacteria propel themselves with corkscrew tails anchored in rotary motors. That may seem surprisingly mechanical for a microbe, but it is a system that has been wildly popular and conserved across billions of years of evolution.

Nonsterile lab reagents and DNA extraction kits add their own assortment of DNA to microbiome samples. Christopher Intagliata reports

All living cells contain DNA; the code for producing every protein needed by the cell. As DNA is important it needs to be kept safe. Plants and animals keep their DNA tightly twisted and organised inside a double-membrane bound nucleus while bacteria keep their DNA coiled up in a big circle, with the occasional loop [...]

A Seattle suburb was making progress cleansing its E. coli-contaminated water supply through system-wide flushes and chlorine injections, a task made more urgent after the potentially deadly bacteria sickened a child, officials said on Tuesday.