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Featured news

20 Sep 2024

Oceanic life found to be thriving thanks to Saharan dust blown from thousands of kilometers away

Scientists from the US measured the relative amounts of ‘bioreactive’ iron in four sediment cores from the bottom of the Atlantic. They showed for the first time that the further dust is blown from the Sahara, the more iron in it becomes bioreactive through chemical processes in the atmosphere. These results have important implications for our understanding of the growth-promoting effect of iron on oceanic phytoplankton, terrestrial ecosystems, and carbon cycling, including under global change.

Featured news

17 Sep 2024

How does a tiny shrimp find its way home in a vast ocean? Study finds it’s down to their cave’s special smell

Researchers from France have shown for the first time that mysid shrimp can distinguish between seawater from their cave of origin and that from nearby caves. This recognition behavior, based on local differences in water-borne odor mixes or ‘chemical seascapes’, is likely what enables the shrimp’s homing behavior when they return each dawn from their foraging trips in open water.

Featured news

30 Aug 2024

Promising antibiotic candidates discovered in microbes deep in the Arctic Sea

Researchers from Finland and Norway developed a new suite of methods for the screening of antivirulence activity of unknown compounds of bacterial origin. The compounds tested had been derived from actinobacteria living inside invertebrates in the Arctic Sea. They found two interesting compounds with strong antivirulence or antibacterial effects against enteropathogenic E. coli. These results demonstrate the potential of prospecting novel habitats for promising new antibacterial drugs, to solve the current global antibiotics crisis.

Featured news

23 Aug 2024

Men infected with high-risk types of HPV could struggle with fertility

Researchers from Argentina compared semen quality between men infected with high-risk (HR-HPV) and low-risk (LR-HPV) genotypes of human papillomavirus and HPV negative men. They showed that HR-HPV positive men had higher percentages of dead sperm, a higher level of reactive oxygen species, and a lower count of white blood cells in their semen. These results suggest that HR-HPV positive men, but not LR-HPV positive men, may have lower fertility due to oxidative damage to sperm.

Featured news

08 Aug 2024

Microbes conquer the next extreme environment: your microwave

Researchers have measured the diversity of microbes inside microwaves for the first time. They showed that microwaves harbor a specialized community of locally adapted microbial genera, which resembles that reported on kitchen surfaces and in another extreme, highly irradiated habitat: on solar panels. This finding has potential biotechnological applications, in processes that require microbes resistant to thermal shock, radiation, and desiccation.