To kill the competition, bacteria throw pieces of dead viruses at...
Enlarge / This is an intact phage. A tailocin looks like one of these with its head cut off. Long before humans became interested in killing bacteria, viruses were on the job. Viruses that attack bacteria, termed "phages" (short for bacteriophage), were first identified by their ability to create bare patches on the surface of…
Nitrogen-using bacteria can cut farms’ greenhouse gas emissions
Fritz Haber: good guy or bad guy? He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his part in developing the Haber-Bosch process, a method for generating ammonia using the nitrogen gas in air. The technique freed agriculture from the constraint of needing to source guano or manure for nitrogen fertilizer and is widely…
Researchers make a plastic that includes bacteria that can digest it
Han Sol Kim One reason plastic waste persists in the environment is because there's not much that can eat it. The chemical structure of most polymers is stable and different enough from existing food sources that bacteria didn't have enzymes that could digest them. Evolution has started to change that situation, though, and a number…
Purple Bacteria — Not Green Plants — Might Be the Strongest...
Astrobiologists continue to work towards determining which biosignatures might be best to look for when searching for life on other worlds. The most common idea has been to search for evidence of plants that use the green pigment chlorophyll, like we have on Earth. However, a new paper suggests that bacteria with purple pigments could…
The right bacteria turn farms into carbon sinks
Some of the microbes that make carbon sequestration work.Andes Ag, Inc In 2022, humans emitted a staggering 36 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Along with reducing emissions, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is a key climate mitigation strategy. But Gonzalo Fuenzalida wasn’t looking to help solve climate change when he co-founded the…
“Can it run Doom?” (Gut bacteria edition)
Ramlan explains her bacterial grid display model and how it fits into the wider "Doom runs on everything" tradition. Here at Ars, we've covered versions of Doom running on everything from hacked printers to Windows' notepad.exe to a version running inside Doom itself. But these and the other many and varied examples of weird Doom…
Should you flush with toilet lid up or down? Study says...
Enlarge / Whether the toilet lid is up or down doesn't make much difference in the spread of airborne bacterial and viral particles. File this one under "Studies We Wish Had Let Us Remain Ignorant." Scientists at the University of Arizona decided to investigate whether closing the toilet lid before flushing reduces cross-contamination of bathroom…
Can it run Doom?: Gut bacteria edition
Ramlan explains her bacterial grid display model and how it fits into the wider "Doom runs on everything" tradition. Here at Ars, we've covered versions of Doom running on everything from hacked printers to Windows' notepad.exe to a version running inside Doom itself. But these and the other many and varied examples of weird Doom…
Experimental antibiotic kills deadly superbug, opens whole new class of drugs
Enlarge / This Scanning Electron Microscope image depicts several clusters of aerobic Gram-negative, non-motile Acinetobacter baumannii bacteria under a magnification of 24,730x. Members of the genus Acinetobacter are nonmotile rods, 1-1.5µm in diameter, and 1.5-2.5µm in length, becoming spherical in shape while in their stationary phase of growth. This bacteria is oxidase-negative and therefore does…
Plant-based cheese may be getting more appetizing
There is no questioning our ongoing love affair with cheese. From pizza and pasta to that decadent slice of cheesecake, we can’t get enough. But the dairy industry that produces cheese has had a negative impact on our climate that is not exactly appetizing. While plant-based alternatives to cheese are easier on the environment—not to…
