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The unique mix of bacteria you leave behind wherever you go might be used to identify you. Touching a phone, or just walking through a room, will leave behind hundreds of microbial species, sometimes including Staphylococcus aureus (inset).PHOTOS: (LEFT TO RIGHT) SCIENCE SOURCE; MATTHEW RAKOLA One morning last summer, evolutionary biologist Jose Lopez was having coffee on the back porch of his house in Hollywood, Florida, when two burglars climbed in through a front window and did what home invaders usually do: They rifled through drawers, disconnected the TV to carry it off, and even opened the fridge to...

A team of Japanese scientists has found a species of bacteria that eats the type of plastic found in most disposable water bottles. The discovery, published Thursday in the journal Science, could lead to new methods to manage the more than 50 million tons of this particular type of plastic produced globally each year. The plastic found in water bottles is known as polyethylene terephalate, or PET. It is also found in polyester clothing, frozen-dinner trays and blister packaging. "If you walk down the aisle in Walmart you're seeing a lot of PET," said Tracy Mincer, who studies plastics in...

A deadly bacterial outbreak is being investigated in Wisconsin with at least 44 reported cases, killing 18 people, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. The rare infection results from a naturally occurring bacteria called Elizabethkingia anophelis, which are found in soil, fresh water and reservoirs, health officials said. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, chills or redness on the skin. The outbreak has primarily affected people over the age of 65 and everyone infected had a history of at least one serious underlying health condition, according to the Department of Health Services. State and federal health officials said...

Bacteria can see, using their entire one-celled selves as a tiny camera lens to focus light, researchers reported Tuesday. The ability goes beyond just a vague sense of where the light is, and allows the one-celled organisms to find just the right spot, the team reported in the journal eLife. "The idea that bacteria can see their world in basically the same way that we do is pretty exciting," said Conrad Mullineaux of the University of Freiburg in Germany and Queen Mary University of London.

The tiny animals - otherwise known as water bears - are famous for surviving in the vacuum of space, among other impossibly hostile environments. But they just got even weirder: According to research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tardigrades get a massive chunk of their DNA from other organisms. "Foreign" DNA is not a foreign concept to scientists. Through a process called horizontal gene transfer, any organism can theoretically swap genes with another. It happens among bacteria all the time, which is how antibiotic resistance spreads so quickly. But it's less common in more...

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that bacteria--often viewed as lowly, solitary creatures--are actually quite sophisticated in their social interactions and communicate with one another through similar electrical signaling mechanisms as neurons in the human brain. In a study published in this week's advance online publication of Nature, the scientists detail the manner by which bacteria living in communities communicate with one another electrically through proteins called "ion channels."

The Mutant Genes Behind the Black Death Only a few genetic changes were enough to turn an ordinary stomach bug into the bacteria responsible for the plague. Pieter Bruegel the ElderThe Triumph of Death (1562), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. By: Carrie ArnoldOctober 6, 2015 Comments (1) Download PDF Print Each year, 4 million people visit Yosemite National Park in California. Most bring back photos, postcards and an occasional sunburn. But two unlucky visitors this summer got a very different souvenir. They got the plague.This quintessential medieval disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and transmitted most often by fleabites,...

On February 24, 1988, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski began an ingenious ongoing experiment to test and demonstrate evolution. He and his coworkers have nursed thousands of generations of the common gut bacterium Escherichia coli, feeding them broth with limited nutrients. The team watched for decades to see if the germs might evolve a solution to this low-nutrient challenge. After about 31,500 generations, some finally cracked the code and changed. Evolution promoter Richard Dawkins wrote that this was “a beautiful example of evolution in action,” and that “creationists hate it.”1 The Harvard Gazette recently wrote, “Though the bacteria were originally genetically...

Everyone is surrounded by a unique "cloud" of millions of their own bacteria, according to scientists at the University of Oregon in the US. Walk through someone else's cloud, and it will "rain" bacteria on your skin and be breathed into your lungs. The study on 11 people, published in the journal PeerJ, showed it was possible to identify people from their microbial miasma. ... Groups of bacteria in the cloud included Streptococcus, which is common in the mouth, and the skin bugs Propionibacterium and Corynebacterium. The researchers argue the mix may have a "forensic application" to detect whether someone...

BOSTON (CBS) – You’ve heard of taking probiotics for a healthy gut, but what about literally spraying live bacteria on your skin? As Dr. Mallika Marshall reports, a local company thinks it’s a good idea for overall health, and plans to prove it. “I have not taken a shower in over 12 years,” says Dave Whitlock, a chemical engineer and MIT grad who says he doesn’t miss bathing at all. “No one did clinical trials on people taking showers every day. So what’s the basis for assuming that that is a healthy practice.” In fact, what Whitlock does believe is...

A new technique for finding and characterizing microbes has boosted the number of known bacteria by almost 50 percent, revealing a hidden world all around us.It used to be that to find new forms of life, all you had to do was take a walk in the woods. Now it’s not so simple. The most conspicuous organisms have long since been cataloged and fixed on the tree of life, and the ones that remain undiscovered don’t give themselves up easily. You could spend all day by the same watering hole with the best scientific instruments and come up with...

Researchers have discovered how to let bacteria control the movement and behavior of a robot, just like what the brain does to the human body. ... Scientists from Virginia tech developed bacteria that can control a robotic car. The robot’s “brain” was replaced with bacterial community, enabling the car to move towards the food sources. The bacteria in the robot’s brain send biochechemical signals to machine’s processor to move its mechanical body. The bacteria were bioengineered to emit green or red signals depending on the condition they found in their environment. Under repeated observations, the scientists noticed that the robot...

Biologists Invoke the Past in Modern Bacteria By swapping ancient genes into modern E. coli, scientists hope to tease out the rules of evolution. Yaman OzakinBetul Kacar, a research fellow at Harvard University, has revived an ancient protein in E. coli. By: Emily SingerJune 18, 2015 One of the greatest challenges in evolutionary biology is trying to piece together the history of life based on fragmentary evidence and limited knowledge of the forces at play — the rich tapestry of climate, geology and living things that forms the backdrop for evolution. How, for example, did the light-sensitive molecules that enable...

In a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications, Columbia University researchers present several devices powered by the shrinking and swelling of bacterial spores in response to changes in humidity. The initial prototypes may look like child's play, but the researchers are convinced that they've only just begun to tap the energy potential of the technology. ... In the new study, his team has cobbled together devices that create lifting and piston-like motions by harnessing the natural tendency of the spores -- which are commonly produced in great quantities for probiotic supplements -- to expand and contract. The devices contain strips...

Last week, TV stations and wire reports began spreading an urgent warning from the Florida Department of Health: A flesh-eating bacteria was spreading in Florida's oceans, health officials warned. More than 30 swimmers have been infected in the past year, including seven in 2015. Two people have already died this year from the bacteria, which — again — literally eats human flesh. Now, the Florida DOH has released an equally vital update. "Visitors encouraged to visit Florida's beautiful beaches," reads the glowing, slightly repetitive headline. Oh, and about that whole flesh eating bacteria thing? Don't worry about it!

Feminist Amanda Marcotte (Twitter): “Taking antibiotics terminates more life than an abortion. One organism < the billions you kill with antibiotics.” IMAGE ON LINK If you can believe an embryo is greater than a woman, I can believe bacteria has a right to live. GRAPHIC IMAGE ON LINK Is this a baby or bacteria?

It sounds like science fiction, but it seems that bacteria within us - which outnumber our own cells about 100-fold - may very well be affecting both our cravings and moods to get us to eat what they want, and often are driving us toward obesity.

Tyler Durden 07/30/2014 As Ebola spreads mercilessly across the world, it appears Florida has a problem that sounds just as awful. As CBS reports, Florida health officials are warning beachgoers about a seawater bacterium that can invade cuts and scrapes to cause flesh-eating disease. At least 11 Floridians have contracted Vibrio vulnificus so far this year and two have died, according to the most recent state data. Not exactly great news for Florida beach season... Vibrio vulnificus –- a cousin of the bacterium that causes Cholera –- thrives in warm saltwater, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and...

Imagine a low-cost treatment for a life-threatening infection that could cure up to 90 percent of patients with minimal side effects, often in a few days. It may sound like a miracle drug, but this cutting-edge treatment is profoundly simple—though somewhat icky: take the stool of healthy patients to cure those with hard-to-treat intestinal infections. A small but growing number of physicians have begun using these so-called fecal transplants to treat Clostridium difficile, commonly referred to as C-diff, a bacterial infection that causes nausea, cramping and diarrhea. The germ afflicts a half-million Americans annually and kills about 15,000 of them....

Benjamin LaMontagne, who died at his home in February four days after wisdom tooth extraction, was killed by a tissue infection of his gums, neck and jaw... after routine oral surgery, was killed by a rare, aggressive bacterial infection that caused swelling of his jaw and neck, according to the state Medical Examiner’s Office. The medical examiner’s report, released Thursday to the Portland Press Herald in response to a public records request, lists the cause of death as cervical necrotizing fasciitis, commonly called “flesh-eating bacteria.” The infection is caused by a powerful strain of streptococcus A, a group of pathogens...