microbiome
What’s happening to viruses, bacteria and mites that exist in our socially-isolated home islands?
We may feel isolated now, in our homes, or apart in parks, or behind plexiglass shields in stores. But we are ...
Evolution heresies: Revisiting Lamarckian and collective evolution
In his most famous work, Charles Darwin proposed that this amazing process is governed by a simple rule: selection of ...
Prebiotics: How best to protect your skin and why daily showers may not be a good idea
Now couldn’t be a weirder time to question washing. I’ve spent the past three years reporting on how our notions ...
Gut microbiomes are most malleable in the first 2 years of life. Can infant probiotics improve long-term health?
[Children] acquire gut microbiome species from their mothers and others in the community during early life. This stands in contrast ...
‘Psychobiotics’: Can we control the way we think by altering gut bacteria?
The allure is simple: Drug development for neuropsychiatric disorders has lagged for decades, and many existing drugs don’t work for ...
Can we boost human memory by tweaking the microbiome?
A new study is among the first to trace the molecular connections between genetics, the gut microbiome and memory in ...
Microbiome could be key to better blood sugar control
Researchers from the Weizmann Institute in Israel analyzed the gut microbiome of 800 people. They also hooked these folks up ...
Hunting for DNA signatures in blood could offer early warning system for cancer
The many companies developing liquid biopsies to try to detect cancer early have so far largely mined the blood in ...
Cancer and heart disease contagious? It’s possible, through the microbiome, researchers argue
It’s a science lesson you probably learned in grade school: You can only catch certain illnesses, like the flu, from ...
Manipulating plant microbiome could yield healthier crops, cut chemical use, study shows
A new study by University of California, Berkeley, microbial ecologists used experimental evolution to help identify the core microbiome of ...
Clues for predicting premature birth risk may be found in mother’s immune system, microbiome
For decades, researchers and clinicians have sought ways to predict and prevent preterm birth with little progress to show for ...
If we find alien life, how will we protect it from our own ‘microbial stowaways’?
When we venture beyond the moon, we’ll be bringing trillions of microbial stowaways with us. Which complicates things. If we ...
How NASA’s struggle with radiation-resistant microbe could help us understand infections
Bacteria have infiltrated sterile rooms NASA used to build space equipment. Studying what happens to them in outer space could ...
What does a healthy human gut virome look like? Study shows that we have no idea
There’s a lot that scientists don’t know about the gut microbiota, and when it comes to the viruses present there ...
Are undiscovered antibiotics ‘silently waiting’ in our own bodies? Researchers scour microbiome for helpful genes
[A] study led by Dr. Mohamed Donia from Princeton University pushed the dark microbiome world into the light by targeting the ...
‘Every sneeze, kiss, or slap on the back could be part of a larger story’: How the microbiome affects our social lives
Research confirms that who you spend time with is a powerful predictor of the microbes you carry. But these tiny ...
Podcast: Obesity, cancer and gut bacteria—how the microbiome impacts your health
Get your hands dirty by delving into the microbiome - the trillions of bacteria that live inside our guts ...
Human carelessness one of the ‘biggest risks if we encounter extraterrestrial life’
As humans explore the solar system, the tantalizing possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life continues to pop up. But the goal ...
Infographic: Meet Asgard archaea, a simple cell that just might look like one of our oldest relatives
The cells of all animals, plants, and fungi have an impressive complexity, with a variety of compartments specialized in various ...
Making a new generation of beauty products from viruses and bacteria
As scientists uncover more details about the skin microbiome, small startups and beauty giants alike are exploring how the trillions ...
Probiotics may help humans stay healthy. Could they benefit other animals, too?
Researchers eye microbes as a tool for fighting disease epidemics in bats, frogs, corals and more ...
‘Life-threatening’ unregulated at-home treatments sparked by research linking autism to gut bacteria
A growing number are experimenting with specialized diets, probiotics, stool transplants and parasites, trying to game the gut to address ...
‘Better’ gut bacteria probably won’t turn you into an elite athlete. But could it give you a performance boost?
Athletes getting an edge from a probiotic boost may be more realistic than once thought ...
Treating food allergies by tweaking the microbiome? Trials offer ‘promising but mixed results’
These days, there is little doubt that the body’s resident bacteria have a big say in how the immune system ...
How microbiome research promises to solve blood shortages, halt food allergies and give us better skin
A microbiome isn’t just something to maintain or optimize – it can also be a crystal ball ...
‘Second generation’ GMO plants could turn marginal soils into productive farmland
Roughly one-third of the world’s arable land suffers from lack of accessible iron, rendering it inhospitable to staple crops like ...
Fecal transplant death sparks new FDA screening precautions, pause of clinical trials
One patient has died and another became seriously ill after fecal transplants inadvertently seeded their innards with a multi-drug resistant ...
