Just as household bacteriologists used kitchen experiments to instruct ordinary Americans about germs, so too can we reproduce these experiments to let students discover the complexities of turn-of-the-century germ theory for themselves.
The race is on to find those viruses in our viromes that have already figured out how to protect us from the bad guys, while leaving the good bacteria intact.
Studies of the energy-harvesting proteins in primitive cells suggest that key features of photosynthesis might have evolved a billion years earlier than scientists thought.
Researchers are tackling the problem of antibiotic resistance head on — by hunting for the genes that enable bacteria to become resistant to life-saving medications.
At first, the biologist Richard Lenski thought his long-term experiment on evolution might last for 2,000 generations. Nearly three decades and over 65,000 generations later, he’s still amazed by evolution’s “awesome inventiveness.”
For all the excitement, scientists still know surprisingly little about why fecal transplants work.
Despite a late start in his field, Kerry Knudsen might know more about lichens than anyone alive today.
An evolutionary arms race keeps humans and bacteria right where they started.
Viruses can control the levels of bacteria in the gut, to make sure that no one type gets the upper hand. Viruses could maintain the biodiversity within us.
Cuts up copies of HIV that have inserted themselves into the genome.
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