Tag: microbes

As the Arctic tundra warms, soil microbes likely will ramp up CO2 production

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Climate change is warming the Arctic tundra about four times faster than the rest of the planet. Now, a study suggests that rising temperatures will spur underground microbes there to produce more carbon dioxide — potentially creating a feedback loop that worsens climate change.

The tundra is “a sleepy biome,” says Sybryn Maes, an environmental scientist at Umeå University in Sweden. This ecosystem is populated by small shrubs, grasses and lichen growing in cold soils rich with stored organic carbon.

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Mixing up root microbes can boost tea’s flavor

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Researchers may have gotten to the root of tea’s soothing effect.

The quality of a cup of chai can be enriched by modifying the microbial community that populates the plant’s roots, researchers report February 15 in Current Biology. The secret is to inoculate roots with bacteria that boost the synthesis of the amino acid theanine.

There’s something in tea that helps us wind down, says Zhenbiao Yang, a plant cell biologist at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology in

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How disease-causing microbes load their tiny syringes to prep an attack

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Swallow the wrong microbe, and you might end up in the hospital with a needle or two in your arm — and plenty of itty-bitty bacterial needles poking at you from the inside. That’s because many bacteria that make us sick use microscopic, syringelike structures to inject our cells with proteins that wreak havoc from the inside. Now, researchers have shown how these microbes load their nanoscale needles with proteins.

Tracking individual proteins as they jittered around inside living bacteria

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‘Time-traveling’ pathogens trapped for thousands of years in melting permafrost could spark next pandemic and wipe out microbes crucial to our planet

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Scientists fear ‘time-traveling’ pathogens could be leaked into the world as their icy prison in permafrost is melting – and they could spark the next planet and destroy the environment.

Ancient viruses, sealed in permafrost for thousands of years, could survive and evolve to become the dominant free-living species- killing up to one-third of bacteria-like hosts.

The stark revelation was made by researchers at the European Commission Joint Research Center, who used computer simulations to find about three percent of

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Soil microbes that survived tough climates can help young trees do the same

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Microbial stress can be a boon for young trees.

Saplings grown in soil microbes that have experienced drought, cold or heat are more likely to survive when faced with those same conditions, researchers report in the May 26 Science. And follow-up tests suggest that the microbes’ protective relationship with trees may linger beyond initial planting.   

The team’s findings could aid massive tree planting efforts by giving new saplings the best chance of survival over the long run, says Ian

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In one lake deep under Antarctica’s ice, microbes feast on ancient carbon

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How microbes survive in lakes far beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet has been a mystery. Now scientists have figured out what’s on the menu for microbes in one buried lake in West Antarctica.

The lake’s bacteria and other microbial inhabitants get by on carbon that seawater left behind thousands of years ago, researchers report in the April AGU Advances. The find adds to existing evidence that, during a period of warming about 6,000 years ago, the ice sheet in West

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