Microbes

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.

To discover our species’ deep history and to shape its future health, we should learn from the microbes that accompanied us on our evolutionary journey.

If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin.

Scientists are having a difficult time finding a treatment for the Zika virus in part because so few drugs are safe for pregnant women. But one antibiotic has shown promise.

Researchers are racing to understand how the Zika virus causes birth defects. Their first results have revealed tantalizing clues about how the virus interferes with the developing brain — and how it might be stopped.

A single genetic change and some clever geometry show how single-celled organisms can band together to form cooperative multicellular entities.

A newly discovered class of microbe could help to resolve one of the biggest and most controversial mysteries in evolution — how simple microbes transformed into the complex cells that produced animals, plants and fungi.

Only a few genetic changes were enough to change an ordinary stomach bug into the bacteria responsible for the plague.

The soil teems with billions of hidden microbes. Researchers have begun to catalog how these organisms are changing the world.