Cholesterol-busting bug with a taste for waste

A novel species of bacteria with cholesterol-busting properties has been discovered by scientists at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Dr Oliver Drzyzga and colleagues isolated the new bug, called Gordonia cholesterolivorans , from sewage sludge. Their findings are reported in the cur...

Stomach ulcer bug causes bad breath

Bacteria that cause stomach ulcers and cancer could also be giving us bad breath, according to research published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology . For the first time, scientists have found Helicobacter pylori living in the mouths of people who are not showing signs...

390-million-year-old scorpion fossil -- biggest bug known

New Haven, Conn. The gigantic fossil claw of an 390 million-year-old sea scorpion, recently found in Germany, shows that ancient arthropods spiders, insects, crabs and the like were surprisingly larger than their modern-day counterparts. Imagine an eight-foot-long scorpion, said O. Erik Tet...

'Hellish' hot springs yield greenhouse gas-eating bug

A new species of bacteria discovered living in one of the most extreme environments on Earth could yield a tool in the fight against global warming. In a paper published today in the prestigious science journal Nature, U of C biology professor Peter Dunfield and colleagues describe the methane-e...

The biggest bug in gut discomfort

In spite of our long and painful relationship with Campylobacter jejuni, we are just starting to answer basic questions about the bug that is the leading cause of bacterial food-borne illness in the United States, and one of the most common causes of diarrhea worldwide. The Centers for Disease Cont...

Eco-friendly bug sucker

A new sterilisation method for fruit and vegetables has been developed, which quite literally sucks the life out of bugs. This method could be used in place ozone-depleting chemicals, like methyl bromide, which are currently used to sterilise fresh produce. The technique, called metabolic stress...

The Midas Bug -- the bacterial alchemy of gold

Bacteria play an important role in the formation of gold nuggets in Australia according to new research published this month in the international journal, Science .. The paper highlights the findings of a Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environments and Mineral Exploration (CRC LEME) ...

Newly discovered reactions from an old drug may lead to new antibiotics

...f Central Florida Associate Professor William Self's research shows that interrupting the way selenoproteins are made can halt the growth of the super bug Clostridium difficile and Treponema denticola , a major contributor to gum disease. Infections of Clostridium difficile (commonly known as C-d...

A cure for honey bee colony collapse?

... treatments of honey bee colony collapse is invaluable. There have been other hypothesis for colony collapse in Europe and the USA, but never has this bug been identified as the primary cause in professional apiaries. "Now that we know one strain of parasite that could be responsible, we can look for ...

Gutsy germs succumb to baby broccoli

...ople in Japan suggests that eating two and a half ounces of broccoli sprouts daily for two months may confer some protection against a rampant stomach bug that causes gastritis, ulcers and even stomach cancer. Citing their new "demonstration of principle" study, a Johns Hopkins researcher and an inte...

Moving in for the winter toxic brown recluse spiders pose danger

...ng. Minimizing clutter in and around the home and sealing boxes are important ways to reduce the chance of a large brown recluse population in a home. bug sprays do not work for ridding a home of brown recluse spiders. Like many spiders, they have long hairs on the bottom of their feet that enable them t...

Caltech researchers get first 3-D glimpse of bacterial cell-wall architecture

...ted by the antibiotic penicillin; penicillin blocks a bacterium's ability to grow and remodel the bag to fit it as the bacterium itself grows. "If the bug can't make this bag," Jensen says, "it can't multiply, and you get better." Researchers have long been interested in understanding the precise arch...

Acoustical Meeting, Nov. 10-14, 2008 in Miami, Florida

...armony: Synchronizing Music Over the Net 11) bug Surveillance Reveals Moths' Stealthy Secrets ... is at 1:55 p.m. on Tuesday, November 11. 11) bug SURVEILLANCE REVEALS MOTHS' STEALTHY SECRETS In...t might also be used one day to listen in on faint bug whispers. In preliminary lab trials, David Swa...

TB bacterium uses its sugar coat to sweeten its chances of living in lungs

... discard unwanted sugar in the body. Those lung cells absorb the TB bacteria, giving the infecting bacteria a place to live for the long term. "The bug sugarcoats itself and creates this magical interaction that allows it to slip by the immune system. We think that this is a beautiful example of the c...

Entomological Society of America names 2008 award winners

...over the past five years and has secured over $250,000 in competitive grant support. She has also been a major contributor and organizer for an annual bug Bash educational program. She has received several awards, including the USDA Regional Award for Excellence in College and University Teaching in ...

Nothing stops an expert in the art of living

...nias plants, complete with their own private mirid bug colonies, and that so far from the plant's home in...st how non-stick mirid bugs really are. Wrapping a bug in a leaf the team were amazed when they unrolled it and 'the bug jumped up and ran away!' says Voigt. The...

How nonstick bugs evade natural fly paper

...onias plants complete with their own private mirid bug colony so far from the plant's home? 'Fortunately ...st how non-stick mirid bugs really are. Wrapping a bug in a leaf the team were amazed when they unrolled it and 'the bug jumped up and ran away!' says Voigt. The...

How non-stick bugs evade natural fly paper

...onias plants complete with their own private mirid bug colony so far from the plant's home? 'Fortunately ...st how non-stick mirid bugs really are. Wrapping a bug in a leaf the team were amazed when they unrolled it and 'the bug jumped up and ran away!' says Voigt. The...

ICS presents prestigious Digby McLaren Medal to Cincinnati's Carl Brett

...ersity of New Hampshire and later at the State University College at Buffalo. "Dad was a wonderful teacher," Brett exclaims. Clearly that teaching bug was passed from father to son. He was a wonderful craftsman, too, as evidenced by a beautiful cabinet that Carl proudly displays in his office. An int...

Presence of certain antibodies signals healthier teeth and gums

...s probable response to periodontal disease treatments, say researchers at the University of Michigan. The antibody is to a protein called HtpG, the bug that makes it is Porphyromonas gingivalis, an important pathogen in periodontal disease. The antibody also has potential as a vaccine candidate, accor...

Insects evolved radically different strategy to smell

...a positive charge. Touhara and Vosshall developed their ion channel hypothesis in parallel with Vosshall's work on DEET, a widely used chemical in bug spray that jams the receptor complex. This research, which was published in Science last month, also showed that DEET jams other proteins that have no...

New drug targets may fight tuberculosis and other bacterial infections in novel way

...ion people each year. Multi-drug resistant strains of M. tuberculosis -- as well as even more dangerous, extensive-drug-resistant (XDR) strains of the bug -- are emerging each year. "Obviously, we are going to require more than the traditional antimicrobial approach to turn this situation around," D...

Nanotube-producing bacteria show manufacturing promise

...ion of arsenic-sulfide nanotubes that have unique physical and chemical properties not produced by chemical agents. We have shown that a jar with a bug in it can create potentially useful nanostructures, Myung said. Nanotubes are of particular interest in materials science because the useful propertie...

Carnegie Mellon, Pitt Team to study psychosocial stress

...timal method for responding to such interviews during daily activities, whether by pressing a button, moving the wrist or speaking into a wireless ear bug device. Environmental data collected by the eWatch also may assist the researchers in characterizing the types of environments people find most stress...

Biologists expose hidden costs of firefly flashes

...much carbon dioxide each firefly produced when they were flashing compared with when they were resting. "Basically, we're in the business of measuring bug breath," notes Woods. These respirometry results demonstrated that fireflies require surprisingly little energy to produce their magical flashes, even...

Using evolution, UW team creates a template for many new therapeutic agents

...terium that can perform the entire process in a laboratory dish: "There's no doubt that this is going to work in vivo," says Thorson. "We can create a bug where you feed it sugars and the compounds you want to hang those sugars on" to arrive at new medicines. ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Aug. 15, 2007

...tigations will take years to complete properly, Cherkasov said. Finding an already existing, well-studied therapeutic agent that will kill an emerging bug might provide a rapid, first line of defense response option. ARTICLE #2 EMBARGOED FOR: Sunday, Aug. 19, 2:45 p.m., Eastern Time CONTACT: Ar...

For many insects, winter survival is in the genes

...hey use a number of specialized proteins to survive the chilly months. These so-called "heat-shock proteins" ensure that the insects will be back to bug us come spring. A study of flesh flies and a handful of other insects suggests that they have an arsenal of protective heat-shock proteins that a...

Scientists seek useful traits in wild cottons

...arch assistant, are screening cottons grown at Lubbock for thrips and Lygus bug resistance. "Thrips are a serious cotton pest," Arnold said. "Th... cotton, and confines their feeding to certain parts of cotton plants using bug cages. The amount of damage they inflict on cotton fruit and their ability ...

Antifungal drug kills TB bug

...uld be given antibiotics but often not in sufficient quantities to kill the bug completely; this is how resistant strains develop and these regions have be...rovide new targets for antibiotic drugs. "When we began looking at the bug and its DNA content in more detail, we noticed it had some unusual characte...

Reminding doctors which antibiotics to prescribe cuts C. difficile infection rates

...ther conditions associated with intestinal inflammation. Rarely, CD infection can be fatal. By contrast, drugs that target only specific types of bug cause less damage to normal gut bacteria and therefore reduce the likelihood that CD will take hold. In their audit study, Dr Sheldon Stone, of...

Giant insects might reign if only there was more oxygen in the air

... The delicate lady bug in your garden could be frighteningly large if only there was a greater concentration of oxygen in the air, a new study concludes. The study adds supp...

Pesticides need sunscreen to beat the heat

... A pesticide with a new in-built sunscreen will help farmers beat the heat in crop protection. This means that the bug sprays last longer, as they are protected from the strong rays of sunshine, reports Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. This is becomin...

Biotech cotton provides same yield with fewer pesticides

...only one of Arizona's three major cotton pests. To control the other two pests, sweet potato whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) and the western tarnished plant bug (Lygus hesperus), growers use broad-spectrum insecticides and other types of insecticides known as insect growth regulators. Carrière and his coll...

Methane-belching bugs inspire a new theory of the origin of life on Earth

...trophic theory requires. The acetate-producing species appears to be the direct descendant of one of the earliest true microbes. "We know that this bug is very ancient indeed," Ferry told the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center's annual meeting earlier this week. "There is strong phylogenetic evid...

Mosquito spray increases toxicity of pyrethroids in creek, study finds

...dely used on agricultural crops.) There are more than 1,200 pyrethroid-containing products on the market in California, ranging from cans of household bug killer to commercial pest control sprays. Prior studies by Weston and colleagues have shown that pyrethroids exist in agricultural and urban strea...

U-M researchers take new approach to defeating Gram-negative bugs

... which the hair anchors on the outside of the cell. "Unfortunately, the bug didn't die," Woodard said. The researchers found that a "backup" gene from ...biotics. "Bugs are very smart," Woodard said. "It's not a matter of if a bug will become antibiotic resistant, but when. We have to work hard to get ahe...

Outsmarting the smartie bug

...nd the bacterium and changing the structure of the capsule can help it to fool our immune defence systems ?like a Smartie changing its colour. "The bug has a polysaccharide coat which can take any one of 90 different forms, known as serotypes," said Stephen Bentley, leader of the project at the Wellco...

Flu not the only germ threat this time of year

...en though flu gets all the press, RSV is a stealth bug worthy of attention too. Ann Falsey, M.D., and ...s die annually from an RSV infection, and that the bug is responsible for more than 177,500 hospitalizati...n addition, pediatricians have long known that the bug is a danger to small children, affecting hundreds ...

Scientist uses dragonflies to better understand flight

...your goal, you can't do better than to emulate a dragonfly. With four wings instead of the standard two and an unusual pitching stroke that allows the bug to hover and even shift into reverse, the slender, elegant insect is a marvel of engineering. Z. Jane Wang, professor of theoretical and applied mec...