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On Waste Plastics at Sea, She Finds Unique Microbial Multitudes
Maria-Luiza Pedrotti is illuminating the unseen worlds of plastic-eating bacteria that teem in massive ocean garbage patches.
A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate
Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold clues about the brain’s circuitry. After nearly a century of study, a possible explanation is crystallizing.
Swarming Bacteria Create an ‘Impossible’ Superfluid
Researchers explore a loophole that extracts useful energy from a fluid’s seemingly random motion. The secret? Sugar and asymmetry.
Chronological Clues to Life’s Early History Lurk in Gene Transfers
To date the branches on the evolutionary tree of life, researchers are looking at horizontal gene transfers among ancient microorganisms, which once seemed only to muddle the record.
Simpler Math Tames the Complexity of Microbe Networks
The dizzying network of interactions within microbe communities can defy analysis. But a new approach simplifies the math and makes progress possible.
Simple Bacteria Offer Clues to the Origins of Photosynthesis
Studies of the energy-harvesting proteins in primitive cells suggest that key features of photosynthesis might have evolved a billion years earlier than scientists thought.
Building Codes for Bacterial Cities
Hydrodynamics and competition guide the architectural design of biofilm fortresses.
The Mutant Genes Behind the Black Death
Only a few genetic changes were enough to change an ordinary stomach bug into the bacteria responsible for the plague.
At Tiny Scales, a Giant Burst on Tree of Life
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.