The bacterium Bacillus subtilis can be found anywhere from soil to a human’s gastrointestinal tract. Known as hay or grass bacillus, B. subtilis is often used as an agricultural plant to deter pests.

Bacteria go to extremes to handle hard times: They hunker down, building a fortress-like shell around their DNA and turning off all signs of life. And yet, when times improve, these dormant spores can ...

OBJECTIVES. To determine the microbial load found on used critical medical devices (5 spinal anesthesia needles, 21 catheters, and 28 sheaths) prior to sterilization and to evaluate the effectiveness ...

Researchers led by a team at the University of California San Diego have developed a biodegradable form of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) that could help reduce the plastic industry’s environmental ...

(Nanowerk Spotlight) Genetically engineered microbes hold astonishing potential as living factories, diagnostic tools, environmental cleansers, and beyond. Yet for all their promise, these organisms ...

Plastics are widely used but difficult to degrade, posing an ecological challenge. A team from SIAT developed degradable "living plastics" using synthetic biology and polymer engineering. They ...

Fungal–bacterial interactions are highly diverse and contribute to many ecosystem processes. Their emergence under common environmental stress scenarios however, remains elusive. Here we use a ...

Strips of plain TPU (top) and "living" TPU (bottom) at different stages of decomposition over five months of being in compost. A new type of bioplastic could help reduce the plastic industry’s ...

Twin spores can be beneficial under particularly harsh conditions, but jumping from single spores to twin spores requires changing cell signaling, division, and chromosomal replication. This is a ...

Kerala’s new ‘state microbe’ and microbiome research hub eye sustainable solutions for health and environment.