Bacteria

Failing antibiotics could lead to a future “dark age of medicine” where once-simple infections become lethal again. Scientists have now found a way to restore antibiotics to their former strength, by repurposing a drug developed to treat Alzheimer’s.

MRSA is an antibiotic resistant superbug often found infecting vulnerable hospital patients. Thought to have emerged as a result of excessive antibiotic use, a new study is suggesting a strain of MRSA actually first appeared 200 years ago in hedgehogs.

Modern medicine is locked in an arms race against antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.” A new treatment may give us the upper hand again by knocking out enzymes that bacteria use to defend themselves against the drugs.

Bold new research has plumbed the depths of poo-packed hippo pools and found they constitute a type of "meta-gut," in which microbes might be shared between the hippos to their benefit, kind of like a "probiotic shake."

Scientists have concluded that the great mountain ranges of the world produced by the collision of Earth's tectonic plates reached their great heights thanks to lubricating graphite, which resulted from an abundance of ancient ocean life.

Scientists have successfully used CRISPR and phages to edit the genome of bacteria in the gut microbiome of live mice for the first time. The breakthrough could help manipulate the ratio between different species to treat a range of health problems.

Antibiotics were one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, but bacteria are developing resistance to them. Now researchers have shown that ultrashort pulses of laser light can kill bacteria and viruses, without harming human cells.

Researchers have developed a new type of vaccine against urinary tract infections that has shown promise in tests in mice. The treatment uses a whole dead bacterial cell, wrapped in a protective cage, to trigger an immune response.

Scientists may have found a way to re-enlist old antibiotics in the fight against superbugs. Gold nanoparticles were wrapped in molecules that seek out bacteria and disrupt their cell membranes, allowing existing drugs to kill them easier.

The microscopic world is important to understand, but tricky to study in detail. Researchers at EPFL have now developed a new microscopy technique that combines two existing ones, allowing scientists to build high-definition 3D images of cells inside and out.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are poised to become a major health threat in the coming decades – but new antibiotics may have been inside us all along. A search algorithm has discovered dozens of potential antimicrobial peptides in the human body.

By using a nanoscale needle tip to probe the intricate exterior structures of Escherichia coli, scientists have produced the sharpest images ever of living bacteria, which may help us better understand the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.