AUSTIN, Texas — Some of the bacteria in our guts were passed down over millions of years, since before we were human, suggesting that evolution plays a larger role than previously known in people’s intestinal-microbe makeup, according to a new study in the journal Science. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and five other institutions have discovered that the more diverse the diet of a fish, the less diverse are the microbes living in its gut. If the effect is confirmed in humans, it could mean that the combinations of foods people eat can influence the diversity of their gut microbes. (more…)
People living in northern latitudes have more gut bacteria linked to obesity compared with people living in southern latitudes, a new study has found.
People living in cold, northern latitudes have bacteria in their guts that may predispose them to obesity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Arizona and the University of California, Berkeley. (more…)
Scientists from Berkeley Lab and the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology analyze a unique microbial motor
The protein structure of the motor that propels archaea has been characterized for the first time by a team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Germany’s Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Terrestrial Microbiology.
The motility structure of this third domain of life has long been called a flagellum, a whip-like filament that, like the well-studied bacterial flagellum, rotates like a propeller. But although the archaeal structure has a similar function, it is so profoundly different in structure, genetics, and evolution that the researchers argue it deserves its own name: archaellum. (more…)
*A former UA postdoctoral fellow has discovered amazing relationships between organisms: a bacterium living inside a bacterium living inside an insect. Evolving together, the organisms depend on each other for survival, and each contributes a subset of the enzymes needed in shared metabolic pathways.*
Sure, many bacteria cause disease, but most people don’t realize how beneficial they can be. The human gut, for example, brims with bacteria that play critical roles in everything from immune system development and extracting energy from food to providing necessary nutrients.
They get a nice comfy home living inside people, and in return they help us. It’s a symbiotic relationship. However, these beneficial partnerships are nothing compared to the complex relationships between bacteria and citrus mealybugs recently discovered by a team of biologists led by former UA researcher John McCutcheon, who recently took a position as an assistant professor at the University of Montana. (more…)
