The presence of certain bacteria can indicate whether the vaginal tract is healthy or not. It could also impact the likelihood of acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases, like HIV, a new study suggests.
In the case of rotting food, microbes are not our friends. Now, scientists have developed a new food wrap coated with tiny clay tubes packed with an antibacterial essential oil that can extend the shelf life of perishable food, so we can waste less and eat more.
The bacteria in our gut — a community called the gut microbiome — have been in the spotlight a lot lately. What we're learning about how our intestinal bacteria adapt and grow with our bodies could help athletes perform better, according to researchers starting a company focused on creating probiotics that mimic athletes' microbiomes.
Scientists know that bacteria create their own energy, get nutrients to run their cellular processes, and multiply. But, bacteria haven't been shown to respond to external mechanical stimulation or signals in a way that's similar to how our bodies respond to touch, until now.
The community of bacteria that lives in our gut has a lot to tell us. It can give clues to what we eat, the environment we live in, and diseases and disorders we may have. Now, scientists have linked these bacterial species to how we feel. A new research study found an association between women's gut bacteria and their emotions.
While at work, you notice your gloves changing color, and you know immediately that you've come in contact with dangerous chemicals. Bandages on a patient signal the presence of unseen, drug-resistant microbes. These are ideas that might have once seemed futuristic but are becoming a reality as researchers move forward with technology to use living bacteria in cloth to detect pathogens, pollutants, and particulates that endanger our lives.
As researchers learn more and more about our intestinal bacteria—also called the gut microbiome—we're finding out that these microbes aren't just influencing our health and wellness, they're a useful tool for improving it, too.
You just sat down, coffee in hand, and the day is ready to start. Now that you have taken a few sips, let me pose a question: What is living in that coffeemaker of yours? The answer might make you dump that coffee down the drain pronto.
In this tutorial, we learn how to grow bacteria with agar and petri dishes. First, prepare your agar by swirling it and then pouring it into an open petri dish. Next, close the cap to the petri dish and let it sit for an hour. Next, grab a q-tip and swab it on a surface you prefer. After this, swab it onto the petri dish and let it sit for around a week. When you come back to the dish, you will see all the bacteria that has grown! This is a great science experiment to do for children in schoo...
Feeling like you need to rid your body of a few toxins? A nice, hot cup of tea isn't just soothing; some varieties have health and diet benefits. See which brew might be right for you. Learn how to tea-tox with help from this video.
Not all bacteria in the eyes cause infection. A group of researchers from the National Eye Institue has shown that not only is there a population of bacteria on the eyes that reside there but they perform an important function. They help activate the immune system to get rid of bad, potentially infection-causing — pathogenic — bacteria there.
When Chan Mei Zhi Alcine chose her senior project, she thought outside the box by thinking inside the bottle. Along with a research team at her university, she found a way to combine health and enjoyment, while meeting a challenge not so definitively met before in alcoholic beverages. She and a research team at her university claim they've created the world's first probiotic sour beer.
The search is on to find antibiotics that will work against superbugs — bacteria that are rapidly becoming resistant to many drugs in our antibiotic arsenal.
Citrus greening disease — caused by a bacteria spread by psyllid insects — is threatening to wipe out Florida's citrus crop. Researchers have identified a small protein found in a second bacteria living in the insects that helps bacteria causing citrus greening disease survive and spread. They believe the discovery could result in a spray that could potentially help save the trees from the bacterial invasion.
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but one annoying invasive weed may hold the answer to treating the superbug MRSA. Researchers from Emory University have found that the red berries of the Brazilian peppertree contain a compound that turns off a gene vital to the drug-resistance process.
Using extreme time-lapse microscopy, scientists watched a virus take over a bacteria to create a cell that looked and functioned more like a plant or animal cell. True story.
A terrifying antibiotic-resistant superbug, one thought to only infect hospital patients, has made its debut in the real world. For the first time ever, the superbug carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infected six people who hadn't been in or around a hospital in at least a year, and researchers aren't sure how they got infected.
This video explains how tree growth rings function and what they can tell us.The growth rings are formed in 2 (sometimes 3) layers of wood that are the spring growth and the summer growth. Ring width can vary depending on the specie of the tree, the environment in which it has grown and the amount of water it has used. By counting the rings you can tell the age of the tree.By analyzing the growth rings, you can see the years in which there was a drought where the tree once stood, because the ...
Makeup brushes accumulate a lot of bacteria and dirt. Keeping your makeup brushes clean should be an important part of your makeup routine. And it doesn't have to take very long. Julieg713 has some great advice on how to deep clean your makeup brushes efficiently. Deep cleaning makeup brushes is recommended at least once a month to keep your brushes in top form and bacteria-free.
Plants all around us capture sunlight every day and convert it to energy, making them a model of solar energy production. And while the energy they make may serve the needs of a plant, the process isn't efficient enough to generate power on a larger scale. So, scientists from the University of California found a way to treat bacteria with chemicals that turned them into photosynthesis machines, capable of generating products we can convert into food, fuels, and plastics.
Several recent research studies have pointed to the importance of the microbes that live in our gut to many aspects of our health. A recent finding shows how bacteria that penetrate the mucus lining of the colon could play a significant role in diabetes.
Breastfeeding is the ultimate in farm-to-table dining. It is sustenance prepared just for the baby and delivered with a very personal touch. Along with bonding, breastfeeding provides powerful protection to infants and young children in the form of beneficial bacteria, hormones, vitamins, protein, sugar, and antibodies manufactured on site to support infant health.
Fighting fire with fire, scientists are harnessing the adaptability of helpful microbes to challenge the adaptability of deadly microbes. What are we talking about? Hunting with phages — viruses that attack and kill bacteria.
In the ongoing search to find better ways to use antibiotics, an extract made from maple syrup has some surprisingly important medical benefits.
The squiggly guys in this article's cover image are Propionibacterium acnes. These bacteria live in low-oxygen conditions at the base of hair follicles all over your body. They mind their own business, eating cellular debris and sebum, the oily stuff secreted by sebaceous glands that help keep things moisturized. Everybody has P. acnes bacteria—which are commonly blamed for causing acne—but researchers took a bigger view and discovered P. acnes may also play a part in keeping your skin clear.
Overweight kids often become overweight adults. New research suggests a couple reasons why and suggested that there may be ways to intercept that fate.
One thousand feet under the ground, extremophile microbes that have not seen the light of day for four million years are giving up some fascinating facts to scientists who go the distance.
Bacteria gets a bad rap. Most headlines focus on the danger and discomfort posed by pathogens like bacteria, but many of the bacteria that live on and in us are vital to our health. Many products out there, called probiotics, are sold with the implication that they're supporting these healthy bacteria that share our bodies — but do they actually work?
This is a tale about microbes, a man who became a hermit, and the parchment that carries both of their stories.
Antibiotics are one of our main weapons against infections. The problem is that many bacteria are becoming resistant to most of the antibiotics we use to treat them, and those 'superbugs' have created an urgent threat to our global health. A research group found a new way to hit a well known bacterial target and have developed a drug to hit it.
As researchers from Yale searched our environment for compounds to aid in the battle against drug-resistant bacteria, they got an unlikely assist from ticks.
Our canine best friends could spread our bacterial worst nightmare, according to a recent study. The problem with drug-resistant bacteria is well known. Overused, poorly used, and naturally adaptive bacteria clearly have us outnumbered. As science drives hard to find alternative drugs, therapies, and options to treat increasingly resistant infections, humans are treading water, hoping our drugs of last resort work until we figure out better strategies.
The body's usual response to a bacterial infection in the blood — called sepsis — takes time. It requires a carefully orchestrated sequence of events that gets the body's immune system ramped up to deal with the invading bacteria.
A disease called "citrus greening" has devastated and permanently altered citrus production in the United States, but a vaccine that could protect orange trees may be part of a winning strategy to beat the bacteria that is killing the trees.
The noses of kids who live in areas of intense pig farming may harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria, presumably acquired from the animals, according to a new study by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, published in Environmental Health Perspectives.
It's not the bacteria itself that takes lives and limbs during invasive flesh-eating bacteria infections. It's the toxins secreted by the group A Streptococcus bacteria invading the body that causes the most damage.
As many as 700 species of bacteria live on our teeth and in our mouth, and just like the microbiomes inhabiting other parts of our bodies, they change in response to diseases and other health conditions.
We usually associate Salmonella bacteria with a dangerous type of food poisoning, but they actually are pretty good at seeking out tumors. That trait made the bacteria a great candidate to deliver a protein that would help knock tumors out.
Cooking spray is super convenient to have around, but it can be expensive compared to regular old oil, and sometimes comes with some nasty sounding additives like dimethylpolysiloxane and dimethyl silicone.
Both professional and home cooks have been rinsing raw chicken and turkey before cooking it for what seems like forever. It's one of those divisive practices—either you do it or you don't, and people tend to be rather opinionated on their stances.
