A study suggests that small mammals like rodents have adapted to thrive on human-influenced land. They also happen to carry a lot of human pathogens. This increases the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, such as pandemics.
Latest Articles
A software program builds alternative DNA molecules
Scientists are using computer programs to understand our early beginnings. Click on the link to see how they are doing…
Medicine
Telling people they’re getting a placebo does not stop it from working
Does giving a placebo require lying to a patient? This study concludes...no! Placebos still work even when the patient knows, at least for emotional distress.
Horseshoe crabs are critical to the biotech industry
Did you know that the modern US biomedical industry is built around the baby blue blood of horseshoe crabs? Come find out what scientists are doing to help…
Diet and exercise can shape how your mind ages
Dementia is a condition that many of us are all too familiar with within friends and family. Dementia itself is a blanket term that describes several conditions…
Can a Chinese medicinal herb Psoralea fructus build healthy bones?
Osteoblasts are cells that are responsible for bone formation. A lack of osteoblasts will cause osteoporosis – a disease that occurs when the body has too…
Human activities such as coal mining and processing can cause high levels of selenium contamination, which can be harmful to human health. Could common soil fungi be the answer to this problem? #fungi #selenium #wastewater #contamination Study by: @mary_sabuda @biominerals @crsoil
What should farmers do to deal with disappearing water? Add fungi to the soil! This recent study sheds light on the use of mycorrhizae to mitigate drought in the farming industry, which is facing increasingly intense water shortages every year.
Researchers found that minerals from rocks deposited in karst aquifers during storms comes in two waves.
A study of burned and unburned cigarettes found that water chemistry and microbes living in Mediterranean beach sediments changed after 4 days of exposure to a cigarette filter.
Microbes on Earth have adapted to survive in some pretty extreme locations. The extreme dryness of deserts, high salinity in salt deposits, cold temperatures of glaciers, and even high pressures of the deep ocean don’t stop some life forms. Another extreme environment is created by a rock known as serpentinite. This…
Researchers found a hidden selenium cycle tied to manganese oxide minerals made by common soil fungi.
Can photosynthetic organisms help clean up contamination? New research from @DominiqueChaput, @biominerals, @RadicalMicrobe & authors studied manganese mineral formation by photosynthetic organisms living in a Mn polluted environment.
Sort of like a fossilized microbial lasagna, fossils called “stromatolites” are formed when layered communities of different types of bacteria trap sand, dirt, and debris in their structure over time. Stromatolites are found in rocks as old as 3.5 billion years, and containing the planet’s earliest life forms.
Many organisms live by breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide, and those that don’t often live by taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. However, did you know that these aren’t the only ways life can survive? Researchers recently discovered Sulfurimonas marinigri, a species of bacteria that…