Microbes
- Earth
Desert trails and microbial life excite this soil scientist
To help her desert community, Lydia Jennings focuses her research on how mining affects soil microbes.
- Life
Scientists Say: Fermentation
Fermentation breaks down carbohydrates, such as sugars, producing energy and making gases, acids or alcohol. This process can help make foods and fuels.
- Health & Medicine
Search speeds up for vaccine against the new coronavirus
Scientists are investigating unusual ways to make drugs to prevent viral infections. One may even be able to treat already sick people.
- Health & Medicine
Immune arms-race in bats may make their viruses deadly to people
An overactive immune system may help bats avoid being sickened by many viruses. This may viruses becoming stronger — and deadlier — when they hit other species.
- Health & Medicine
Explainer: What is a coronavirus?
Coronaviruses are a diverse family of disease-causing agents. Some cause the common cold. Newer ones have emerged to pose more serious threats to people.
- Microbes
Globetrotting microbes in airplane sewage may spread antibiotic resistance
Along with harder-to-kill microbes, airplane sewage contains a diverse set of the genes that let bacteria evade antibiotics.
- Microbes
Drug-resistant germs kill some 35,000 Americans each year
The new mortality rate may be way low, some experts say. Also troubling are two new germs that have emerged as big and urgent threats.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Species
This word describes organisms grouped by their similarities in genetics and physical traits. But defining species can be tricky.
- Animals
Cool Jobs: Poop investigators
Far from just being waste, poop is loaded with clues to the health, biology and behavior of whatever body produced it.
- Animals
Mystery disease is killing Caribbean corals
Scientists are racing to pin down a new coral disease that’s “annihilating” whole species from Caribbean reefs.
- Microbes
Obesity in mice caused by defects in their immune system
Subtle defects in T cell function alter rodents’ microbiome and fat absorption, providing hints of what might also be going on in people.
- Agriculture
As infections ravage food crops, scientists fight back
Diseases threaten important food crops like cocoa beans, wheat and citrus. Scientists are working to understand these infections — and fight back.
