Bacteria

Bacteria often get a bad rap, but in many cases they’re helpful little critters. Engineers have now developed a protective coating for buildings that’s loaded with bacteria, which absorb CO2 to produce a barrier against erosion by the elements.

Cancer tumors are particularly adept at evading the body’s immune response, making treatment difficult. A new study has genetically engineered a common gut bacteria, enabling it to seek out and destroy cancer tumors from the inside.

Studying how bacteria interacts with the environment, a microbiology team discovered a powerhouse of an enzyme that consumes hydrogen and turns it into electricity. Researcher Rhys Grinter told New Atlas what the findings could mean for clean energy.

Bacteria are fast developing resistance to our antibiotics, potentially ushering in a new “dark age of medicine” where basic infections become lethal again. Now scientists have developed self-assembling “nanonets” that can trap and kill superbugs.

Currently, in order to see what type of bacteria (if any) are present in a liquid sample, bacterial cultures have to be grown in a lab over the course of several hours – or even a few days. A new laser technique, however, works in just minutes.

While catching sight of Steve Irwin’s best friend and one of nature’s most intimidating ambush predators in the wild would spark fear in anyone, the saltwater crocodile might actually be able to help us in our fight against serious infections.

Calcium carbonate is an impressive material, in that it combines strength, light weight and porosity. Scientists have devised a new bacteria-based method of 3D-printing the substance, for uses such as bone repair and coral reef restoration.

Science is quickly catching up to the powerful sniffers on dogs with its own range of artificial noses. Case in point: researchers modified E. coli bacteria to spin electrically conductive nanowires capable of detecting disease-related odor molecules.

A new longitudinal study has investigated the link between a commonly occurring oral bacteria and coronary heart disease, improving our understanding of how infection affects the development of the disease.

Make all the jokes you want, but the methane emitted in the form of cow burps and farts is actually a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. That could soon change, however, thanks to bacteria found in baby kangaroo feces.

E. coli is arguably the most well-studied organism on Earth, but scientists have now discovered a new behavior that’s almost never seen in bacteria. The normally single-celled organisms have shown signs of previously unknown multicellular phases.

Manipulating microbes has helped human civilization for millennia, since we started using yeast to make bread and booze. In a modern breakthrough, scientists have created semi-living “cyborg cells” that can survive in environments natural cells can’t.