No Evolution for 2 Billion Years

Scientists examining microfossils of deep-sea sulfur bacteria from Western Australia's coast found them virtually indistinguishable from those in older samples and the same sulfur bacteria today, an example of more than 2 billion years of no evolution in a static environment that confirms rather than challenges current evolutionary theory.

Bacteria in Healthy Placentas

Long thought to be sterile, a new study has found that the placenta is home to a non-pathogenic bacterial community that is similar to that found in the mother's mouth and that may be linked to poorly understood pregnancy disorders.

Microbe "Eats" Electricity

Researchers have found a common bacteria (Rhodopseudomonas palustris) uses a method called extracellular electron transfer (EET) to pull electrons from iron and conductive minerals found in soil for use with sunlight as nourishment in their own metabolism.

New Clean Room Microbe

A rare new strain of microbe (Tersicoccus phoenicis) that survives harsh sterilization techniques and with almost no nutrients has been discovered in two spacecraft clean rooms in Florida and South Africa, a bacteria so different from known species it has been classified with a new genus.

Parasite Affects Instinctive Fear

A common single-cell pathogen (Toxoplasma gondii) removes the instinctive fear of predators (cats) in rodents, possibly permanently modifying a specific brain function as an evolutionary adaptation for the parasite, which can only reproduce sexually within the cat gut.

Bacteria Affecting Climate

Scientists have discovered bacterial communication via secretion of various chemical signals (often to determine if other similar bacteria are in the proximity), and that such chemical means of communication in ocean-based microorganisms at depth could affect Earth's natural carbon cycle.

DNA of Black Death

Scientists have sequenced the full genome of the bacterium that causes the plague (Yersinia pestis) from teeth samples taken from victims buried in London in 1348, the first time an ancient pathogen has been restored for scientific study.

Cat Urine Rocket Fuel

Researchers have identified a common bacterium present in cat urine (anammox) that thrives in the absence of oxygen and is useful in converting ammonium, a compound present in urine, into hydrazine, a component of rocket fuel.

Bacteria and Extreme Gravity

Using an ultracentrifuge to duplicate hypergravity conditions such as found with massive stars or cosmic events, researchers have found that four ordinary strains of soil bacteria can survive and grow under as much as 400,000 times Earth's gravity.

Three Gut Ecosystems

Researchers have found only three broad enterotypes of bacteria (dubbed bacteriode, prevotella and ruminococcus after the dominant species) exist in the human gut worldwide regardless of physical variations in race, age, geography or diet.

Gut Bacteria and Human Brain

Researchers have uncovered a bidirectional "cross-talk" communication between the flora living in the human gut and the way the brain is wired that influences anxiety-related behaviors and may relate to psychiatric illness, intestinal diseases and metabolic disorders such as obesity.

Bacteria Can Smell

New studies of two species of soil bacteria revealed that colonies could detect the odor of airborne ammonia, forming a slimy biofilm and slowly migrating toward the source, suggesting the sense of smell may have evolved much earlier than previously thought.