Superbugs, the disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to even the most high-powered antibiotics, are becoming more commonplace. One dangerous strain called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), once restricted to hospital wards, is turning up in soccer fields and gym lockers. read in full issue (pdf)
You can learn a lot about a cell by the company it keeps. Horacio Frydman hopes to learn volumes about mysterious cells in the ovaries of fruit flies that harbor an unexpected guest, an intracellular bacterium called Wolbachia.
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Scientific discoveries sometimes emerge from the most unexpected places. HHMI Professor Graham C. Walker, for instance, never predicted that a classroom experiment with soil bacteria would uncover a missing link in the biochemical pathway for manufacturing vitamin B12.
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If you were a modern day Gulliver exploring the natural world, you might very well encounter miniscule Lilliputians and giant Brobdingnagians like the ones of make-believe. It should be obvious which are which—gnats and mites, elephants and whales. But nature’s stories can be even more fantastic than those from literature, and with careful scrutiny, your point of view can turn inside-out, making it surprisingly difficult to discern just who is Lilliputian and who is Brobdingnagian. read story
Some things just never seem to change. The adage holds true for an unlikely subject — the genetic material of bacteria living inside aphids, those squishy green insects you can’t keep out of your garden — according to a pair of University of Arizona evolutionary biologists. read story