Microbiology

As researchers race to cultivate more of the intriguing cells from the deep seafloor, the few cells now growing in labs are giving us our best glimpses of the forerunners of all complex life.

“Virovores” — organisms that survive and multiply by eating viruses — might influence the flow of energy through ecosystems.

Tiny genetic sequences in a mother’s bacteria seem to hop into the infant's bacteria, perhaps ensuring a healthy microbiome later in life.

Marine bacteria normally seen as single cells join together as a “microscopic snow globe” to consume bulky floating carbohydrates.

New work suggests that the radiolytic splitting of water supports giant subsurface ecosystems of life on Earth — and could do it elsewhere, too.

The physicist Jeff Gore tests theories about microbe communities experimentally and finds new rules governing ecological stability.

A new model shows that the denizens of a vast, ancient biome beneath the seafloor use barely enough energy to stay alive — and broadens understanding of what life can look like.

Newly discovered worlds of microbes far beneath the ocean floor, inside old basaltic rocks, could point to a greater likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe.

To stay healthy, humans and some other animals rely on a complex community of bacteria in their guts. But research is starting to show that those partnerships might be more the exception than the rule.