Aluminium foil that can clean water: we’ve developed a coating which attracts and traps dangerous microbes: John Fredricks/NurPhoto More than 2 billion people around the world do not have access to safe, uncontaminated drinking water. Around 418 million of them live in African countries. The problem is most acute in rural communities, where people’s primary …
The melting Arctic is a crime scene. The microbes I study have long warned us of this catastrophe – but they are also driving it: The Arctic’s climate is warming at least four times faster than the global average, causing irrevocable changes to this vast landscape and precarious ecosystem – from the anticipated extinction of …
Microbiome: certain gut microbes may warn of Alzheimer’s disease long before the first symptoms begin: sfam_photo/Shutterstock What if the microbes in your gut could act as an early warning system, alerting you that you could be developing Alzheimer’s disease? This might sound improbable, but recent research has found certain microbes are more common in those …
An element essential to life discovered on one of Saturn’s moons, raising hopes of finding alien microbes: Ice particles, with just a trace of phosphates, venting from near Enceladus's south pole, as imaged by Cassini in 2010. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Enceladus is the tiny moon of Saturn that seems to have it all. Its icy …
How we found microbes rarer than a ticket to the Moon: Legendrea loyezae, a very rare ciliate that lives in oxygen-free sediments of lakes James Weiss, Author provided You are more likely to take a trip to the Moon than to see a microbe called Legendrea loyezae under a microscope. Nasa’s Apollo programme has sent …
South Africa in the news: Innovative tools take aim at antibiotic-resistant microbes: Diagnostics that rely on bacterial movements, genomics and machine learning could help to address a global crisis.: “South Africa” – BingNews Digitalisation of SMMEs is key to their integration in corporate supply chains: If South Africa is to successfully drive job creation and …
South Africa in the news: Innovative tools take aim at antibiotic-resistant microbes: Diagnostics that rely on bacterial movements, genomics and machine learning could help to address a global crisis.: “South Africa” – BingNews Digitalisation of SMMEs is key to their integration in corporate supply chains: If South Africa is to successfully drive job creation and …
Seti: how microbes could communicate with alien species: Are microbes travelling around in the galaxy? Nuttawut Uttamaharad Are we alone in the universe? The famous Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programme has been trying to answer this question since 1959. American astronomer Carl Sagan, and many others, believed that other human-like civilisations must exist, and …
Mars: how scientists prevent Earth’s microbes from contaminating other planets: Nasa's Perseverance. NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY-SA There are two planned Mars landings in 2021. First, Nasa’s Perseverance rover is due to land on the planet later this month. Then China’s Tianwen rover will follow in May. Both missions intend to search the planet for signs of …
Microbes might be gatekeepers of the planet’s greatest greenhouse gas reserves: Mikhail Varentsov / shutterstock Massive greenhouse gas reserves, frozen deep under the seabed, are alarmingly now starting to thaw. That’s according to an international team of scientists whose preliminary findings were recently reported in the Guardian. These deposits, technically called methane “gas hydrates”, are …
We’re using microbes to clean up toxic electronic waste – here’s how: Ltummy/Shutterstock If you were to stack up all the electronic waste produced annually around the world it would weigh as much as all the commercial aircrafts ever produced, or 5,000 Eiffel towers. This is a growing “tsunami” according to the UN, and it’s …
How Math Can Help Unravel the Weird Interactions of Microbes: Analyzing the abundant interactions within the communities of microbes that inhabit soil, the intestines and other environments has always been a formidable challenge. century, scientists have become adept at plotting the ecological interactions of the diverse organisms that populate the planet's forests, plains and seas. …