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File this under: What don’t we know?We just discovered slice “2″ is alive.  |1 – Continental crust | 2 -Oceanic crust | 3 – Upper Mantle | 4 – Lower Mantle | 5 – Outer Core | 6 – Inner Core | Image Credit: Dake You might have thought that photosynthetic life forms had the Earth covered, but according to some researchers the largest ecosystem on Earth was just discovered and announced last Thursday, and it’s powered by hydrogen, not photosynthesis.The Oceanic Crust is the rocky hard part under the mud that lies under the ocean. It covers 60% of...

Scientists are reporting "laboratory resurrections" of several 2-3-billion-year-old proteins that are ancient ancestors of the enzymes that enable today's antibiotic-resistant bacteria to shrug off huge doses of penicillins, cephalosporins and other modern drugs. The achievement, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, opens the door to a scientific "replay" of the evolution of antibiotic resistance with an eye to finding new ways to cope with the problem. Jose M. Sanchez-Ruiz, Eric A. Gaucher, Valeria A. Risso and colleagues explain that antibiotic resistance existed long before Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic in 1928. Genes that contain instructions for...

MRSA is one of a number of bacteria that are resistant to many antibiotics © Science Photo LibraryGlobal research efforts to develop new antibiotics need to be accelerated urgently, the UK government’s chief medical officer has warned. She adds that that new drugs are desperately needed to fight the ‘catastrophic threat’ of growing antimicrobial resistance.In the second part of her annual report Dame Sally Davies focuses on antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases. She says that the development of new antibiotics has stalled since the late 1980s because ‘there are fewer economic incentives’ to produce new antimicrobial agents than for other...

Origin of Theiler hepatitis was a century-old puzzle. For almost 100 years, veterinarians have puzzled over the cause of Theiler disease, a mysterious type of equine hepatitis that is linked to blood products and causes liver failure in up to 90% of afflicted animals. A team of US scientists has now discovered that the disease is caused by a virus that shares just 35% of its amino acid sequences with its closest-known relative. The team named it Theiler disease-associated virus (TDAV), and published the discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. Led by Amy Kistler at the...

It's not quite the ‘elephant in the room’, but an 18 megadalton viral assembly is perhaps the biggest thing in the mass spectrometer (MS). Dutch and US researchers have used quadrupole time-of-flight (QToF) native MS to investigate intact capsids from a bacteriophage – a virus that infects bacteria. While there is theoretically no upper limit on the mass of a particle that might be analysed using ToF MS, the work is far from trivial in breaking through the record.The late John Fenn shared the 2002 Nobel prize in chemistry for his pioneering work on electrospray ionisation techniques in mass...

Some researchers propose that all antibiotics kill cells using reactive oxygen species, whereas others favour individual paths © ShutterstockThe esoteric yet deadly serious world of antibiotic chemistry looks set for something of a showdown. Two new pieces of research appear to flatly contradict a new school of thought about how antibiotics kill bacteria, which has been gaining traction in recent years. The topic is important because a detailed understanding of the mechanism of action of antibiotics is key to the development of new and more efficient antibiotics in the face of mounting resistance to antibiotics by pathogenic microbes.In 2007, a...

Enlarge Image Whack here. By taking great care to eliminate possible contamination of rock samples -- including sterilizing the outer surfaces of rocks and then removing their outer layers to expose fresh material within—researchers found the strongest evidence yet that microbes live deep within the sea floor. Credit: Jesper Rais/AU Communication Samples drilled from 3.5-million-year-old seafloor rocks have yielded the strongest evidence yet that a variety of microorganisms live deeply buried within the ocean's crust. These microbes make their living by consuming methane and sulfate compounds dissolved in the mineral-rich waters flowing through the immense networks of fractures in...

JACKSON, Miss. —Doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center said they have cured a baby suffering from HIV and the breakthrough is reverberating worldwide. Related Woman says ex kidnapped her 18-wheeler overturns off of I-20 3 arrested in Jackson drug bust Grenade launcher found during drug bust Fire hydrant testing begins in West... "There is excitement around this," said Dr. Deborah Persaud of John's Hopkins Children's Center. Doctors across the country are heralding the medical breakthrough in Jackson. "We have, perhaps inadvertently, but in fact, cured the child," said Dr. Hannah Gay, associate professor of pediatrics. "We don't know...

Enlarge Image Greedy guest. Fungi (blue lines) living among the cells of a grass cause that plant to make more seeds and less pollen. Credit: Jennifer Rudgers Life demands tradeoffs, and plants are no exception. Virginia wildrye, common on U.S. prairies and rangelands, often plays host to a fungus that helps this grass grow. But the plant pays a price. Researchers have discovered that infected plants produce less pollen than their noninfected counterparts. Instead, the fungus causes the rye grass to make extra seeds, which transmit the fungus to the next generation and new locations. This is the first...

Having established the presence of fungi in the lungs of patients with asthma, researchers now hope this could lead to new lines of research and eventually, better treatments for sufferers. "In the future it is conceivable that individual patients may have their sputum tested for fungi and their treatment adjusted accordingly," says Hugo van Woerden of Cardiff University. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)CARDIFF U. (UK) — Healthy lungs are full of fungi, but some species are more common in people with asthma, new research finds. Hundreds of tiny fungal particles found in the lungs of asthma sufferers could offer new clues in...

Enlarge Image Blind spot. The parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus (inset) can move to the eyes and cause blindness as in these two patients in Guinea-Bissau. Onchocerciasis is considered a neglected tropical disease. Credit: Harry Anenden/WHO; (inset) CDC A small parasitic worm is one of the leading causes of blindness in the world. But now researchers have discovered a molecule in the urine of African patients that could help diagnose those infected with the parasite and help eliminate the devastating disease known as river blindness. The illness, scientifically known as onchocerciasis, is caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. Black...

Scientists has discovered how an important natural antibiotic called dermcidin, produced by our skin when we sweat, is a highly efficient tool to fight tuberculosis germs and other dangerous bugs. Their results could contribute to the development of new antibiotics that control multi-resistant bacteria. Scientists from the University of Edinburgh and from Goettingen, Tuebingen and Strasbourg have uncovered the atomic structure of the compound, enabling them to pinpoint for the first time what makes dermcidin such an efficient weapon in the battle against dangerous bugs. Although about 1700 types of these natural antibiotics are known to exist, scientists did not...

An international team of researchers has developed a new class of anti-flu drug that could prevent new virus strains developing resistance and help control future pandemics while more effective vaccines are prepared. Each year, flu viruses cause up to five million cases of severe illness worldwide, resulting in up to 500 000 deaths.The preferred drug treatments for flu – neuraminidase inhibitors including Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir) – treat infection by stopping the viral surface enzyme neuraminidase from interacting with its natural substrate, sialic acid. It is this interaction that releases the virus from an infected cell and allows it...

Toxoplasma is a common 'cat parasite', and has previously been in the spotlight owing to its observed effect on risk-taking and other human behaviours. To some extent, it has also been associated with mental illness. A study led by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now demonstrates for the first time how the parasite enters the brain to influence its host. "We believe that this knowledge may be important for the further understanding of complex interactions in some major public health issues, that modern science still hasn't been able to explain fully," says Antonio Barragan, researcher at the Center for...

While we all know mercury is poisonous it is methylmercury, the organic form, that bioaccumulates in food webs and is highly toxic. It's been acknowledged for years that methylmercury is produced by microorganisms far down the food chain, but what has not been known is how they do it. US-based researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have now identified the genes, and hence the proteins, involved in mercury methylation and suggest that the pathway is common for all mercury methylating microorganisms.Using gene deletion, Jerry Parks' team showed that two genes are key components of bacterial mercury methylation, relating...

A team of UCLA-led researchers has identified a protein with broad virus-fighting properties that potentially could be used as a weapon against deadly human pathogenic viruses such as HIV, Ebola, Rift Valley Fever, Nipah and others designated "priority pathogens" for national biosecurity purposes by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. In a study published in the January issue of the journal Immunity, the researchers describe the novel antiviral property of the protein, cholesterol-25-hydroxylase (CH25H), an enzyme that converts cholesterol to an oxysterol called 25-hydroxycholesterol (25HC), which can permeate a cell's wall and block a virus from getting in....

TB kills more people annually than any other infectious disease besides HIV In a patient's fight against tuberculosis—the bacterial lung disease that kills more people annually than any infectious disease besides HIV— doctors have more than 10 drugs from which to choose. Most of those didn't work for Uvistra Naidoo, a South African doctor who contracted the disease in his clinic. For those who contract the disease now, maybe none of them will. A new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warns that the first cases of "totally drug-resistant"...

Antibiotics are used regularly for treating bacterial infections, but there is currently no quick and simple test to determine the most effective type or dose of antibiotic for a specific patient infection. As a result, it’s estimated that around 30% of all antibiotic prescriptions are not the optimum choice. This can lead to the formation of drug-resistant bacteria, delayed recovery, and in some cases death from an infection.Tests for the most appropriate antibiotic choice are performed for life-threatening patient infections. However, microbes have to be grown on agar plates from a very small patient sample which delays results for a...

Forget ancient maps and metal detectors. Those seeking hidden gold might do well to add bacteria to their toolbox. The bacterium Delftia acidovorans secretes a molecule that binds to dissolved gold and turns it into shiny, solid gold, scientists have discovered. The bacterium — and perhaps others like it — might one day process gold at mining sites or create gold nanoparticles with desirable properties, says geomicrobiologist Frank Reith, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide in Australia. In 2006 Reith and his colleagues reported finding biofilms of bacteria growing on solid gold grains in soil. Some of these...

Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that kills nearly 2 million people worldwide each year. Although antibiotics exist that can ameliorate the symptoms, the courses of therapy last for months and don't completely eradicate the disease, which frequently recurs years or decades after the initial treatment. Now, in a classic case of bench-to-bedside research, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a possible reason for the disease's resistance: The ability of the tuberculosis bacteria to infiltrate and settle down in a particular class of stem cell in the bone marrow. By doing so, the bacteria take advantage of...