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Categories: Biology: Microbiology, Energy: Alternative Fuels

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A new analysis reveals that soft technology, the processes to design and deploy a solar energy system, contributed far less to the total cost declines of solar installations than previously estimated. Their quantitative model shows that driving down solar energy costs in the future will likely require either improving soft technology or reducing system dependencies on soft technology features.

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Early social and environmental exposures can have large and lasting effects on child development and adult health. One of the systems that is vulnerable to external influence is the gut microbiome. A new study highlights a critical development window during which racial differences in the gut microbiome emerge. The findings are based on analysis of data from 2,756 gut microbiome samples from 729 U.S. children between birth and 12 years of age.

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Cooking food thoroughly and avoiding some types of vegetables and salad during a course of antibiotic treatment could potentially reduce antibiotic resistance, by preventing bacteria carrying resistance genes getting into the gut, according to a new study.

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Researchers have found that molecules in vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower help to maintain a healthy barrier in the lung and ease infection.

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'Back-to-school' season means buying pens, figuring out the bus route, and ... earaches. Cutting corners with antibiotics, however, can accelerate resistance. Today, researchers report developing a single-use nanoscale system that's unlikely to generate resistance. Using a compound similar to bleach in test animals, they show it can kill off a bacterium that causes ear infections, and it could someday be easily applied as a gel.

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Young vegetables known as microgreens are reputed to be particularly good for health. But are microgreens the superfood they're claimed to be, and how do they compare to mature veggies? Scientists have found that their nutritional profiles differ, as do their effects on gut bacteria. Yet, tests in mice suggest that both microgreen and mature vegetables can limit weight gain.

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Teeth could be capable of preserving antibodies for hundreds of years, allowing scientists to investigate the history of infectious human diseases, a new study has found.

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A new method allows large quantities of muscle stem cells to be safely obtained in cell culture. This provides a potential for treating patients with muscle diseases -- and for those who would like to eat meat, but don't want to kill animals.

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Routinely cleaning wristbands is generally ignored. New research finds 95 percent of wristbands tested were contaminated. Rubber and plastic wristbands had higher bacterial counts, while gold and silver, had little to no bacteria. Bacteria found were common skin residents of the genera Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas, and intestinal organisms of the genera Escherichia, specifically E. coli. Staphylococcus was prevalent on 85 percent of the wristbands; researchers found Pseudomonas on 30 percent of the wristbands; and they found E. coli bacteria on 60 percent of the wristbands, which most commonly begins infection through fecal-oral transmission.

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Bioengineers developed a platform that enhances survival and function of probiotics engineered to diagnose inflammatory bowel disease in animals. The technology holds promise for minimally invasive disease monitoring and advanced smart therapeutics.

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In antibacterial photodynamic therapy, irradiation is used to produce reactive oxygen species that kill off bacteria. Because it requires external light and oxygen, this method is only suitable for surface infections. A research team has now introduced a molecular 'singlet oxygen battery' that can be 'charged' with reactive oxygen, which it then releases in deep tissue layers to target methicillin-resistant staphylococcus.

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Advanced microscopy techniques give scientists valuable clues for how to fight an enzyme that is leading to a rise in cases of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections worldwide.

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A mathematical model provides new insights into the distribution of genetic information during bacterial cell division

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Iron is well-known for rusting, but this doesn't just happen on contact with oxygen and water. Some bacteria are also able to able to decompose iron anaerobically in a process referred to as electrobiocorrosion. The sediment-dwelling bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens uses electrically conductive protein threads for this purpose. They produce magnetite from the iron, which promotes further corrosion in a positive feedback loop.

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Unexpected new insights into how COVID-19 infects cells help explain why coronaviruses are so good at jumping from species to species and will help scientists better predict how COVID-19 will evolve.

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Expensive noble metals often play a vital role in illuminating screens or converting solar energy into fuels. Now, chemists have succeeded in replacing these rare elements with a significantly cheaper metal. In terms of their properties, the new materials are very similar to those used in the past.

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Using a novel method to detect microbial activity in biological soil crusts, or biocrusts, after they are wetted, a research team in a new study uncovered clues that will lead to a better understanding of the role microbes play in forming a living skin over many semi-arid ecosystems around the world. The tiny organisms -- and the microbiomes they create -- are threatened by climate change.

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Researchers have created a panel of genetically diverse mice that accurately model the highly variable human response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The team uncovered differences in the innate immune and regulated proinflammatory responses, the timing and strength of which are associated with disease severity.

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An experimental malaria vaccine appears safe and promotes an immune response in African infants, one of the groups most vulnerable to severe malaria disease. There is currently only one malaria vaccine, 'RTS,S' that is approved by the World Health Organization and offers partial disease protection. However, in the results of the early-stage phase Ib trial, researchers find that targeting RH5 -- a protein that the malaria pathogen Plasmodium falciparum uses to invade red blood cells -- can generate a promising immune response that is most pronounced in an infant cohort.

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A new analysis shows that infectious bacteria exposed to the antibiotic albicidin rapidly develop up to a 1,000-fold increase in resistance via a gene amplification mechanism.