Microbes from extreme environments help us study space
Space is a hostile place. It has numerous stressors which make it seem impossible for Earth-like life to thrive there. Some of these…
Category: Microbiology
Small animals that carry disease adapt well to our activities
A study suggests that small mammals like rodents have adapted to thrive on human-influenced land. They also happen to carry a lot of human…
Using Reishi mushrooms to filter methane out of the atmosphere
Could dead or living #fungi be used as a biofilter to trap and remove #methane, the potent #greenhousegas, from the atmosphere? Researchers…
Fungi may be able to help clean up polluted water
Human activities such as coal mining and processing can cause high levels of selenium contamination, which can be harmful to human health.…
What beached whales can teach us about antibiotic resistance
Researchers found that more than half of the bacteria collected from stranded cetaceans in the Philippines showed antimicrobial resistance…
Early Martian life may have used sulfur as an energy source
Using an environment on Earth that simulates early Mars conditions, researchers found an abundance of bacteria that get their energy from…
Disease-causing bacteria can grow on hydroponic microgreen mats
Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes are two diarrhea-causing bacteria that can make you sick when eating contaminated produce. It…
A new way to look for signs of ancient life on Earth and Mars
The Mars 2020 mission involves sending a rover, named Perseverance, to Mars to look for evidence of past life on that planet. Perseverance…
Can cigarette butts on the beach influence the local environment?
A study of burned and unburned cigarettes found that water chemistry and microbes living in Mediterranean beach sediments changed after 4…
Strange microbes found living in caves of sulfuric acid
Researchers studying a sulfuric acid cave in Italy are among the first to describe organisms found living in gypsum, an acidic mineral…