All Articles Tagged As: bacteria

Biologists surprised to find parochial bacterial viruses (3/5/2008)

Intriguing find reveals more mysteries from Mexico's Cuatro Cienegas ...> Full Article

Viruses Evolve To Play By Host Rules (3/4/2008)

Biologists have examined the complete genomes of viruses that infect the bacteria E. coli, P. aeruginosa and L. lactis and have found that many of these viral genomes exhibit codon bias, the tendency to preferentially encode a protein with a particular spelling. ...> Full Article

Scientists rebuild ancient proteins to reveal primordial Earth's temperature (2/11/2008)

Using the genetic equivalent of an ancient thermometer, a team of scientists has determined that the Earth endured a massive cooling period between 500 million and 3.5 billion years ago. ...> Full Article

Geneticist Uses New Computational Methods to Search for a Neanderthal Legacy and for Disease Genes (1/20/2008)

Each year, Jurassic Park seems less like science fiction. Scientists are decoding woolly mammoth DNA. They also are decoding DNA from an extinct species much closer to us in genetic makeup - the Neanderthal. ...> Full Article

Human Genetic Variation: Science's 'Breakthrough Of The Year' (1/1/2008)

In 2007, researchers were dazzled by the degree to which genomes differ from one human to another and began to understand the role of these variations in disease and personal traits. Science and its publisher, AAAS, the nonprofit science society, recognize "Human Genetic Variation" as the Breakthrough of the Year, and identify nine other of the year's most significant scientific accomplishments. ...> Full Article

Study Maps Life in Extreme Environments, Creating Potential for Molecular Bioengineering and Dynamical Models of Cells (12/31/2007)

A team of biologists have developed a model mapping the control circuit governing a whole free living organism. This is an important milestone for the new field of systems biology and will allow the researchers to model how the organism adapts over time in response to its environment. This study marks the first time researchers have accurately predicted a cell's dynamics at the genome scale (for most of the thousands of components in the cell). The findings, which are based on a study of Halobacterium salinarum, a free-living microbe that lives in hyper-extreme environments, appear in the latest issue of the journal Cell. ...> Full Article

NIH Launches Human Microbiome Project, (12/25/2007)

Roadmap Effort to Use Genomic Technologies To Explore Role of Microbes in Human Health and Disease ...> Full Article

Researchers study viruses at deep-sea vents (12/24/2007)

A University of Delaware research team has received a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant to study one of the least appreciated of all life forms--viruses. ...> Full Article

Researchers Solve First Structure of a Key to Intact DNA Inheritance (12/23/2007)

Researchers have solved the structure of a DNA-protein complex that is crucial in the spread of antibiotic resistance among bacteria. Knowing this structure also provides fundamental insight into how cells successfully divide into two new cells with intact DNA. ...> Full Article

Team discovers bacterial surprise (12/7/2007)

A DNA shift never before seen in nature ...> Full Article

Flip-Flopping Gene Expression Can Be Advantageous (11/22/2007)

One gene for pea pod color generates green pods while a variant of that gene gives rise to the yellow-pod phenotype, a feature that helped Gregor Mendel, the 19th century Austrian priest and scientist, first describe genetic inheritance. However, many modern-day geneticists are focused on the strange ability of some genes to be expressed spontaneously in either of two possible ways. ...> Full Article

The bacteria can cheat on their mates (11/16/2007)

Pursuing our own short term interests by cheating on the rest of the population is not the preserve of the human race. It seems bacteria can operate in just the same way. ...> Full Article

Human Microbiome Projects to sequence 150 bacteria, sample human metagenome (11/4/2007)

A $2.3 million grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute will enable researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston to determine the genetic code of bacteria that colonize healthy humans and study the structure of microbial communities from five regions of the human body. ...> Full Article

Bacteria Use Plant Defence for Genetic Modification (10/23/2007)

Bacteria that cause tumours in plants modify plant genomes by skilfully exploiting the plants' first line of defence. ...> Full Article

Massive Reanalysis Of Genome Data Solves Case Of The Lethal Genes (10/20/2007)

It is better to be looked over than overlooked, Mae West supposedly said. These are words of wisdom for genome data-miners of today. Data that goes unnoticed, despite its widespread availability, can reveal extraordinary insights to the discerning eye. ...> Full Article

Novel Insecticidal Toxins From Bacteria (9/10/2007)

A light-emitting strain of bacteria and a nematode worm, which work together to prey on soil-dwelling insects, use insecticidal toxins to kill their insect hosts. Scientists speaking at the Society for General Microbiology's 161st Meeting are now investigating the potential role of these toxins in bacteria pathogenic to humans. ...> Full Article

One Species' Genome Discovered Inside Another Species' Genome (8/31/2007)

Bacterial to animal gene transfers shown to be widespread, with implications for evolution and control of diseases and pests ...> Full Article

World's Oldest Bacteria Found Living In Permafrost (8/28/2007)

A research team has for the first time ever discovered DNA from living bacteria that are more than half a million years old. Never before has traces of still living organisms that old been found. ...> Full Article

Social Parasites Of The Smaller Kind (8/26/2007)

Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats -- mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others' cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperation persists despite the threat of cheat takeover is a fundamental question. Recently, biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford have found that in bacteria, cheats actually orchestrate their own downfall. ...> Full Article

Ancient Organisms Discovered In Canadian Gold Mine (8/23/2007)

Scientists have suspected that the three known domains of life -- eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea -- branched off and went their separate ways around three billion years ago. But pinning down the time of that split has been an elusive task. ...> Full Article

Bacteria Mutate Much More Than Previously Thought (8/20/2007)

Portuguese scientists show that in bacteria the rate of beneficial mutations – those that increase the capacity of an organism to survive in a particular environment – is much higher than previously thought. ...> Full Article

New Method Better Identifies Functionally Related Genes On The Bacterial Chromosome (8/1/2007)

The moment a bacterial pathogen makes contact with its host, its goal is simple: to infect. To do the job, it has to turn a specific array of genes on and off and show a little know-how in adapting to its new environment. A new tool developed at Rockefeller University allows scientists to identify more precisely than before this specific array of genes - known and unknown - that are expressed as a result of this interaction as well as determine what functions they may perform. ...> Full Article

Surprising New Species Of Light-harvesting Bacterium Discovered In Yellowstone (7/26/2007)

In the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, a team of researchers has discovered a novel bacterium that transforms light into chemical energy. The discovery of the chlorophyll-producing bacterium, Candidatus Chloracidobacterium (Cab.) thermophilum, will be described in the July 27 issue of the journal Science in a paper led by Don Bryant, Ernest C. Pollard professor of biotechnology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State, and David M. Ward, professor of microbial studies in the Thermal Biology Institute and Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University, and colleagues. ...> Full Article

How Pathogens Evolve To Escape Detection (7/20/2007)

An arms race is under way in the plant world. It is an evolutionary battle in which plants are trying to beef up their defenses against the innovative strategies of pathogens. The latest example of this war is a bacterium (Pseudomonas syringae) that infects tomatoes by injecting a special protein into the plant's cells and undermines the plant's defense system. ...> Full Article

Parasite Supports Host By Becoming Fertility Aid (4/28/2007)

Bacteria that commonly infect insects have evolved from parasites to being a fertility aid. The bacteria could eventually be targeted as an option for pest control in order to kill common human disease carriers such as mosquitoes. ...> Full Article