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+4 +1
Salt-tolerant bacteria with an appetite for sludge make biodegradable plastics
Using a bacterial strain found in mangroves, researchers at Texas A&M University have uncovered a low-cost, sustainable method for producing bioplastics from sewage sludge and wastewater.
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+14 +1
Bacteria fight by destroying each other’s biofilms
In bacterial battles, there is more than just direct killing. Some bacteria even challenge their prey by destroying their bacterial houses. We could learn a lot from these microscopic combats for our own fights against bacterial superbugs.
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+24 +1
Mouth Bacteria Have Been Linked to Severe Forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
The human body is a league of nations for an unfathomable variety of microbes, kept in check by complex relationships with our immune system and carefully crafted truces with each other.
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+17 +1
The magic of mushrooms forces us to rethink what intelligence means
The astonishing secrets of fungal life raise profound questions
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+15 +1
How bacteria read and follow the Earth’s magnetic field
Magnetotactic bacteria have magnetosomes with which they can sense magnetic field lines. This allows magnetotactic bacteria to swim towards North or South
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+25 +1
AI Just Discovered a New Antibiotic to Kill the World’s Nastiest Bacteria
Penicillin, one of the greatest discoveries in the history of medicine, was a product of chance. After returning from summer vacation in September 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming found a col…
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+13 +1
The perfect virus: two gene tweaks that turned COVID-19 into a killer
We thought we had bigger things to worry about than Chinese bat coronaviruses. It is now clear we made a massive mistake.
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+3 +1
Unique discovery in Erasmus MC: antibody against corona - Erasmus Magazine
A world premiere from Erasmus MC and Utrecht University: they found an antibody against COVID-19.
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+14 +1
Major breakthrough can turn plant waste into cheap biofuels
A new discovery could help lessen our reliance on fossil fuels by turning plant waste into biofuels, such as ethanol, in a much cheaper way than before. Among the many ways suggested to reduce humanity’s reliance on polluting fossil fuels is replacing them with biofuels. Now, researchers from Rutgers University have published a study to Green Chemistry showing they can produce these fuels from plant waste for a fraction of the cost of other methods.
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+7 +1
Engineered viruses could fight drug resistance
In the battle against antibiotic resistance, many scientists have been trying to deploy naturally occurring viruses called bacteriophages that can infect and kill bacteria. Bacteriophages kill bacteria through different mechanisms than antibiotics, and they can target specific strains, making them an appealing option for potentially overcoming multidrug resistance. However, quickly finding and optimizing well-defined bacteriophages to use against a bacterial target is challenging.
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+16 +1
Transplanting poop can be beneficial—swapping vaginal fluids may be even better
In the afterglow of successful fecal transplants, researchers are now sniffing around vaginal fluids for the next possible bodily product to improve health—and they’re roused by the possibilities.
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+12 +1
Fungus-Farming Ants Might Hold the Secret to Fighting Drug-Resistant Microbes - D-brief
In 2017, a woman in Nevada died from a fairly common bacterial infection, Klebsiella pneumoniae. Her death wasn’t the product of medical oversight or inattention; rather, it came despite it. Her infection proved resistant to every antibiotic drug doctors threw against it, NPR reports. They ultimately exhausted 26 different drugs — the bacteria was resistant to every single one.
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+25 +1
Genetically Modified Viruses Help Save A Patient With A 'Superbug' Infection
For the first time, scientists have used genetically modified viruses to treat a patient fighting an antibiotic-resistant infection. Isabelle Carnell-Holdaway, 17, began the experimental treatment after doctors lost all hope. She was struggling with a life-threatening infection after a lung transplant. With the new treatment, she has not been completely cured. But the Faversham, England, teenager has recovered so much that she has resumed a near-normal life.
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+26 +1
Teenager recovers from near death in world-first GM virus treatment
A British teenager has made a remarkable recovery after being the first patient in the world to be given a genetically engineered virus to treat a drug-resistant infection. Isabelle Holdaway, 17, nearly died after a lung transplant left her with an intractable infection that could not be cleared with antibiotics. After a nine-month stay at Great Ormond Street hospital, she returned to her home in Kent for palliative care, but recovered after her consultant teamed up with a US laboratory to develop the experimental therapy.
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+10 +1
Phage Therapy Win: Mycobacterium Infection Halted
When Graham Hatfull, PhD, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh specializing in phage biology and James Soothill, MD, a microbiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOHS) in London, met over 20 years ago at a phage biology meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, they could not have predicted that they would one day collaborate to save the life of a teenage girl with a Mycobacterium infection.
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+12 +1
Spinach Leaf Transformed Into Beating Human Heart Tissue
Using the plant like scaffolding, scientists built a mini version of a working heart, which may one day aid in tissue regeneration. By Delaney Ross.
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+15 +1
Researchers use sunlight to pull hydrogen from wastewater
A research team at Princeton University has harnessed sunlight to isolate hydrogen from industrial wastewater. By Molly A. Seltzer.
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+11 +1
I had my poo tested to see if the science on gut bacteria stacks up
There are more than 1,000 species of bacteria fighting deep inside your body. But what does the makeup of that bacteria tell us about our health? Your digestive system is about seven metres long — dank folded passageways filled with rotting food and faeces and slick with bile.
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+26 +1
A multicellular way of life for a multipartite virus
A founding paradigm in virology is that the spatial unit of the viral replication cycle is an individual cell. Multipartite viruses have a segmented genome where each segment is encapsidated separately. In this situation the viral genome is not recapitulated in a single virus particle but in the viral population. How multipartite viruses manage to efficiently infect individual cells with all segments, thus with the whole genome information, is a long-standing but perhaps deceptive mystery.
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+32 +1
Stop sterilizing your dust
Most people have heard about antibiotic-resistant germs. But how about antibiotic-resistant dust? A new Northwestern University study has found that an antimicrobial chemical called triclosan is abundant in dust — and linked to changes in its genetic makeup. The result is dust with organisms that could cause an antibiotic-resistant infection.
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