News by Subject Biology

Researchers have identified a possible new treatment for gonorrhea, using a peptide that thwarts the infection-causing bacterium by interfering with an enzyme the microbe needs to respirate.

Individuals who do not produce enough iron are anemic, and often experience fatigue. One common remedy is for physicians to prescribe an iron infusion to their anemic patients. This makes sense, but can lead to unexpected consequences like increasing the risk of food poisons such as Salmonella. These types of poisons depend on abundant access to iron. Physicians should be attuned to this dynamic when determining the strength of iron infusions for their anemic patients.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 is one of the most studied spills in history, yet scientists haven't agreed on the role of microbes in eating up the oil. Now a research team at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has identified all of the principal oil-degrading bacteria as well as their mechanisms for chewing up the many different components that make up the released crude oil.

Toxins produced by three different species of fungus growing indoors on wallpaper may become aerosolized, and easily inhaled. The findings, which likely have implications for 'sick building syndrome,' were published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

An adult mouse model reveals that changes in lattice-like structures in the brain known as perineuronal nets are necessary to 'capture' an auditory fear association and 'haul' it in as a longer-term memory.