Microbe Magazine

Snakes harbor Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV), apparently accounting for how this virus survives during cold winters, according to Thomas Unnasch and his collaborators at the University of Southern Florida in Tampa and also at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala. The viruses emerge to cause... More...

Although circadian clocks were thought to be found only among eukaryotes, bacteria are also endowed with 24-hour timing systems, according to Susan Golden from the University of California in San Diego. “Photosynthetically growing cyanobacteria, for example, have a group of interacting proteins, ... More...

The green alga Botryococcus braunii forms colonies that are ornately organized and exceedingly functional, according to Taylor Weiss and Ursula Goodenough of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., and their collaborators, including Tim Devarenne of Texas A&M Uni... More...

The latest repertoire of deletions from a particular strain of Bacillus subtilis covers 76%, or 3.22 Mb, of the genome of this gram-positive bacterium—thereby “increasing considerably the number of chromosome regions known to be dispensable,” says computational biol... More...

Microorganisms that were isolated from the rest of the world under ice more than 3,000 years ago continue to thrive at −13°C in the dark, salty, and anoxic liquid depths of Lake Vida in the Antarctic that is covered with about 65 feet of ice, according to Alison Murray of the Desert Research Inst... More...

Arming probiotic bacteria with genes encoding anti-inflammatory proteins is a promising and a potentially long-term, cost-effective therapy for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to Nathalie Vergnolle at the Centre de Physiopathologie de Toulouse Purpan (CPTP) and Philippe Langella at th... More...