After her initial test run, she cultured a regular sample, as well as the shocked sample so she could compare them side by ...

Scientists are trying to understand how complex life emerged on Earth about 2 billion years ago. Our microbial ancestors could be the key.

People have long given up on the search for the Fountain of Youth, a mythical spring that could reverse aging. But for some scientists, the hunt has not ended—it's just moved to a different place.

In the depths of Scarisoara cave in Romania sits one of the world’s biggest underground glaciers, a monumental slab of ice the size of roughly 40 Olympic swimming pools that began to form around ...

Symbiotic bacteria living inside insect cells have the smallest genomes known for any organism. The findings further muddy the distinction between cellular organelles like mitochondria and the most ...

Studying ancient microbes like this one is risky research, but it can also reveal novel biological mechanisms that inspire more effective drugs. Reading time 3 minutes For decades, antibiotics have ...

Microbes could help oak trees cope with environmental change. Publishing in Cell Host & Microbe, a study observing oaks growing in a natural woodland found that the trees' above- and below-ground ...

Deep inside Earth lies a hidden world of "intraterrestrials" that have been dormant for hundreds of thousands of years — what are they waiting to "wake up" for? When you purchase through links on our ...

On every continent, unassuming rocks covered in a thin, slimy layer of microbes pull carbon from the air and deposit it as solid calcium carbonate rock. These are microbialites, rocks formed by ...

The microbes living in sourdough starters don’t just appear by chance—they’re shaped by what bakers feed them. New research shows that while the same hardy yeast tends to dominate sourdough starters ...

Microbial communities, though invisible to the naked eye, are vitally important to planetary health and to Earth’s ecosystems. But they are often neglected in conservation strategies. Like other ...

A new study carried out in Australia finds that the bark of common tree species holds diverse microbial communities, with trillions of microbes living on every tree. The research determined that many ...