How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick?
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For a pathogen to make us sick, it must overcome a lot. First it has to enter the body, bypassing …
bacteria
How a Chinese lab used a saltwater-loving microbe to turn waste water into precious semiconductor materials
Scientists in China have succeeded in using sunlight-driven bacteria to clean organic pollutants from waste water and, in the process, make valuable new chemicals. The ability to extract useful chemicals …
What Will Plants Be Like on Alien Worlds?
Duffy and Haworth speculate that on remote planets, communities of purple bacteria could swell in black sulfurous oceans, or spread in films around local sources of hydrogen sulfide. If they …
The Secret of How Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Scientists have come to realize that in the soil and rocks beneath our feet there lies a vast biosphere with …
Day spa source of Legionnaire’s disease that killed two
MARTINEZ — A Richmond day spa was the likely source where bacteria grew and caused a Legionnaires’ disease breakout that killed two people and sickened at least two more earlier …
Man Gets Gnarly, Newly Discovered Infection From Stray Cat Bite
A man in the UK has become a medical first, though not in a great way. In a recent paper, scientists say he’s the first known person to have caught …
The World Is Toxic. Welcome to the Metabolic Era
Kim Kardashian’s newest range of products, launched in late 2022—post SKIMS shapewear, post SKKN facewear—is a menacing set of raw concrete forms for storing bathroom products: a gray tissue box, …