South America's Andes Mountains, the world's longest mountain range and home to some of the planet's highest peaks, feature thousands of hot springs. Driven by plate tectonics and fueled by hot rock ...

There is so much we don't know about microbes, even while these organisms are the most numerous on the planet. A recent study called our understanding of microbial life 'profoundly ignorant,' and ...

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is one of the most dramatically affected regions by global warming. For a long time, the region has been exposed by low temperature and soil moisture, which led to the severe ...

The study delves into hypersaline lakes in Xinjiang, China, exploring the genetic and metabolic diversity of microbial communities termed "microbial dark matters". Hypersaline lake ecosystems, ...

There are bacteria that researchers are very familiar with; some of them are common environmental microbes, and range from harmless to strains that can easily cause infection in animals or people, ...

Microbial necromass carbon refers to the remains of dead bacteria and fungi. Although the term may sound unappealing, this material is one of the most important building blocks of stable soil organic ...

Genetic manipulation of a puzzling, miniscule bacteria that has lived in human mouths at least since the Middle Stone Age is elucidating the genes needed for its unusual lifestyle. These ...

An international research team produced the first large-scale analysis of more than 400 newly sequenced and existing Omnitrophota genomes, uncovering new details about their biology and behavior.

A new study may shed light on the role of "microbial dark matter" in the progression of periodontitis and other diseases, according to results published online in the Proceedings of the National ...

IT HAS been 30 years since my appendix and I parted company. As I lay debilitated and miserable in hospital, I told myself the surgeon hadn’t removed anything vital, just a functionless relic. And an ...