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  • Analysis
    6 years ago
    by Apolatia
    +22 +1

    New imaging technique reveals how dragonfly wings tear bacteria apart

    Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have used a new technique to produce detailed images of dragonfly wings, showing more than 10 billion tiny 'fingers' (nanostructures) lining the wing surface that make bacteria tear themselves apart.

  • Current Event
    6 years ago
    by geoleo
    +18 +1

    Source of 'worst listeria outbreak' found

    South Africa says it has finally traced the source of a listeria outbreak that has killed 180 people in the past year - said to make it the worst in history. The source is a factory operated by Enterprise Foods in Polokwane in Limpopo. More facilities are being tested to see if they contributed to the outbreak which infected almost 1,000 people. The health minister warned cross-contamination of other processed meats could have occurred in shops.

  • Current Event
    6 years ago
    by rawlings
    +13 +1

    Wide range of drugs affect growth of gut microbes, study says

    A wide range of drugs from cancer therapies to antipsychotics affect the growth of microbes that are found in our gut, researchers say, highlighting that it is not only antibiotics that can have an impact on our internal flora. These microbes, whose genes taken together are known as the gut microbiome, play an important role in our health, including for our immune system and our digestion, and have been linked to a host of diseases such as autoimmune conditions, obesity and mood disorders.

  • Analysis
    5 years ago
    by geoleo
    +17 +1

    Bathroom hand-dryers suck in poo-particles and aerosolize them all over you and everything else

    A new study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology (Sci-Hub mirror) conducted microbial surveys of the bathrooms at the University of Connecticut (where the study's lead authors are based) to investigate whether hand-dryers were sucking in potentially infectious microbes and then spraying them all over everything, as had been observed in earlier studies.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by drunkenninja
    +19 +1

    New compound shown to be as effective as FDA-approved drugs against life-threatening infections; tests indicate it is less susceptible to resistance

    Purdue University researchers have identified a new compound that in preliminary testing has shown itself to be as effective as antibiotics approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat life-threatening infections while also appearing to be less susceptible to bacterial resistance.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by ppp
    +9 +1

    Beating bacteria – looking beyond antibiotics

    The standard treatment for a serious bacterial infection is a dose of antibiotics, which slow or halt the infection by hindering critical cellular processes within the bacteria. However, some bacteria have evolved devious mechanisms to protect themselves against antibiotics, for instance by producing enzymes that can destroy the antibiotic molecules, or by making themselves less permeable to the antibiotic.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by rhingo
    +4 +1

    Worms Frozen for 42,000 Years in Siberian Permafrost Wriggle to Life

    Did you ever wake up from a long nap feeling a little disoriented, not quite knowing where you were? Now, imagine getting a wake-up call after being "asleep" for 42,000 years. In Siberia, melting permafrost is releasing nematodes — microscopic worms that live in soil — that have been suspended in a deep freeze since the Pleistocene. Despite being frozen for tens of thousands of years, two species of these worms were successfully revived, scientists recently reported in a new study.

  • Analysis
    5 years ago
    by belangermira
    +23 +1

    Grandma Was Right: Sunshine Helps Kill Germs Indoors

    All kinds of bacteria live with us indoors, and some can make us sick. A new study shows that rooms exposed to light had about half the live bacteria found in rooms that were kept in darkness.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by sasky
    +11 +1

    Cleantech startup makes plastic from 'the fat of the bacteria'

    What if plastic were made from waste like banana peels, coffee grounds and cardboard takeout containers instead of petroleum? And what if, after use, that plastic decomposed like the biological materials it was made from? Toronto-based Genecis, a cleantech startup, is trying to make that dream of greener plastic a reality, and to make it cheap enough to use in everyday throwaway items like coffee pods and other food packaging.

  • Image
    5 years ago
    by AdelleChattre
    +10 +1

    The resonances between Indigenous art and images captured by microscopes

    Rich visual parallels between [Australian] Indigenous artworks and microscopic natural structures hidden in the world around us reveal unexpected and intriguing similarities that can deepen our respect for our country and its stories. By Roger Wepf.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by Chubros
    +11 +1

    Earth teeming with strange underground organisms which may be planet's first inhabitants

    Earth is teeming with life miles beneath the surface, scientists have discovered, leading to speculation that our distant ancestors may even have evolved deep underground. Researchers at the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) said they had found barely-living ‘zombie’ bacteria and tiny worms, inhabiting entirely new ecosystems more than three miles into the crust. The lifeforms are so numerous that their mass may be up to 385 times that of all humans.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by sauce
    +3 +1

    Bacteria found in ancient Irish soil halts growth of superbugs—new hope for tackling antibiotic resistance

    Researchers analysing soil from Ireland long thought to have medicinal properties have discovered that it contains a previously unknown strain of bacteria which is effective against four of the top six superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. Antibiotic resistant superbugs could kill up to 1.3 million people in Europe by 2050, according to recent research. The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes the problem as "one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today".

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by 8mm
    +13 +1

    Researchers Discover a New Mechanism Used by Bacteria to Evade Antibiotics

    UC San Diego researchers have discovered an unexpected mechanism that allows bacteria to defend themselves against antibiotics, a finding that could lead to retooled drugs to treat infectious diseases.

  • Current Event
    5 years ago
    by sauce
    +14 +1

    Pathogens hitchhiking on plastics ‘could carry cholera from India to US’

    Dangerous sewage pathogens have been found “hitch-hiking” on plastic litter washed up on some of Scotland’s finest bathing beaches, raising concerns from scientists the phenomenon could have far-reaching implications for human health worldwide. The findings, by the University of Stirling, have confirmed environmentalists’ fears that ubiquitous, persistent and tiny plastic beads, or “nurdles”, found on beaches and in rivers and seas around the world, act as rafts for harmful bacteria, transporting them from sewage outfalls and agricultural runoff to bathing waters and shellfish beds.

  • Analysis
    5 years ago
    by ubthejudge
    +2 +1

    Virus tricks the immune system into ignoring bacterial infections

    A bacterium which is responsible for about 10% of hospital-acquired infections in the US uses a virus to trick a person’s immune system into ignoring it. The virus, known as a phage, infects the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium, which frequently resists antibiotic treatment. The phage prompts the immune system into going after it instead of its microbe host, researchers report1 on 28 March in Science. The bacterium and the phage, called Pf, exist in a symbiotic relationship that scientists suspect is more widespread in the microbial world than previously believed.

  • Analysis
    4 years ago
    by dianep
    +26 +1

    Men’s beards are dirtier than dogs’ fur, study says

    The Hirslanden Clinic looked at the “bacterial load in colony-forming units (CFU) of human-pathogenic microorganisms” in swabs taken from 18 men’s beards and 30 dogs’ necks. All of the guys with beards had high microbial counts, but only 23 of the 30 dogs had the same high count.

  • Current Event
    4 years ago
    by jerrycan
    +25 +1

    These microscopic mites live on your face

    You almost certainly have animals living on your face. You can't see them, but they're there. They are microscopic mites, eight-legged creatures rather like spiders. Almost every human being has them. They spend their entire lives on our faces, where they eat, mate and finally die. Before you start buying extra-strong facewash, you should know that these microscopic lodgers probably aren't a serious problem. They may well be almost entirely harmless. What's more, because they are so common they could help reveal our history in unparalleled detail.

  • Current Event
    4 years ago
    by hedman
    +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.

  • Current Event
    4 years ago
    by takai
    +26 +1

    Methane-consuming bacteria could be the future of fuel

    Known for their ability to remove methane from the environment and convert it into a usable fuel, methanotrophic bacteria have long fascinated researchers. But how, exactly, these bacteria naturally perform such a complex reaction has been a mystery. Now an interdisciplinary team at Northwestern University has found that the enzyme responsible for the methane-methanol conversion catalyzes this reaction at a site that contains just one copper ion.

  • Analysis
    4 years ago
    by jerrycan
    +4 +1

    Flying insects in hospitals carry 'superbug' germs

    Many flies and flying insects in hospitals carry bacteria that could pose an infection risk to patients, and more than half of them carry the types that resist antibiotics, a new study says.