A special strain of soil bacteria has the paradoxical ability to produce highly toxic compounds to protect itself from other organisms without harming itself.
The idea of bacteria as diverse, complex perceptive entities that can hunt prey in packs, remember past experiences and interact with the moods and perceptions of their human hosts sounds like the plot of some low-budget science fiction movie.
Whenever we use our smartphones to check social media, we face loads of bacteria on the devices — even more than on toilet seats, according to a University of Arizona study.
When Pete Beckman was an undergraduate in the 1980s, science and engineering majors typically sought summer jobs as lifeguards, golf caddies and other such positions filled by teenagers.
CROWDSOURCE asks Argonne scientists from different disciplines to each provide a perspective on a complex question. Today we’re asking: What might your field of science look like in 50 years?
Grasping the biological, chemical and geological processes microbes engage in is critical to understanding and predicting global climate, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient transport and other natural phenomena.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory have mapped out two very different types of protein. One helps soil bacteria digest carbon compounds; the other protects cells from the effects of harmful molecules.
The key to extracting usable energy from deep coal seams and depleted oil reservoirs may lie with their tiniest residents: the microscopic organisms known as methanogenic Archaea.
There has been an unprecedented increase in food allergies in developed countries, rising by as much as 20 percent in the past decade. Allergy to cow’s milk is one of the most common, occurring in up to three percent of children worldwide.
