Microbiology News

October 11, 2026

Top Headlines

Scientists Discover Why a 100-year-old Mushroom Disease Won't Go Away

Oct. 11, 2026 Scientists have uncovered a surprising secret behind a mushroom disease that has frustrated growers for more than a century: It involves more than 17 species of harmful bacteria, not just one. The discovery could explain why treatments have ...

This “Golden Tree” Coral Was Too Strange for Any Known Family

Oct. 8, 2026 A brilliant yellow coral discovered off Costa Rica proved so unusual that scientists had to create an entirely new family to classify it. The meter-tall colonies rise from seafloors covered in brittle stars, inspiring the Tolkien-inspired name ...

A New Way to Fight Gum Disease Without Wiping Out Good Bacteria

Oct. 6, 2026 Scientists discovered that disrupting the chemical messages bacteria use to communicate can push dental plaque toward a healthier microbial balance. The approach could lead to new treatments for gum disease that control harmful bacteria without ...

Scientists Reveal What Seven Days of Fasting Does to the Human Body

Oct. 5, 2026 Scientists found that prolonged fasting triggers major changes throughout the body, but many of the most interesting effects only appeared after about three days without food. The results suggest fasting may influence health in ways that go beyond ...

Scientists Discover a Human Brain Gene That Can Jump Through DNA

Oct. 5, 2026 Scientists have discovered a human gene with a remarkable double life: it appears to play an important role in brain cells while still retaining the ability to jump around the genome. Called BC200, the gene evolved millions of years ago from a ...

The “Glue” Holding Your Cells Together Has a Surprising Second Job

Oct. 4, 2026 Scientists have discovered that E-cadherin, a protein best known as the “glue” holding cells and tissues together, has a surprising second job: helping epithelial cells swallow nearby dead cells. Using live zebrafish and mouse embryos, ...

Leucine Does More Than Build Muscle. It Powers Up Your Cells

Oct. 3, 2026 The essential amino acid leucine can boost cellular energy production by protecting key proteins on mitochondria from being destroyed. The discovery reveals a new connection between nutrition and metabolism that could eventually lead to new ...

Mulberry May Reshape Gut Bacteria and Influence Metabolism

Sep. 30, 2026 Mulberry compounds may reshape the gut microbiome in ways that support intestinal health and metabolism, with some combinations showing especially strong effects in animal studies. However, the results vary depending on the plant part and processing ...

Scientists Find New Virus Behind Mysterious Tick Illness

Sep. 28, 2026 Scientists have discovered a new tick-borne virus in China that causes flu-like illness and may account for previously unexplained cases of fever, fatigue, digestive problems, and low platelet counts. Most patients with ALTNV alone recovered, but ...

New Soil Test Could Reveal How Soil Microbes Help Feed Plants

Sep. 27, 2026 Scientists have streamlined a method for measuring DNA-bound phosphorus in soil, making it cheaper and easier while preserving its accuracy. The technique could reveal how soil microbes help recycle phosphorus and ultimately support more sustainable ...

1.7-billion-year-old Fossils Reveal a Crucial Clue to the Rise of Complex Life

Sep. 27, 2026 Scientists studying ancient Australian rocks uncovered more than 12,000 fossils from some of the oldest known eukaryotes on Earth. These early complex cells lived in settings ranging from coastal ...

Scientists Say House Cats Could Help Unlock Better Cancer Treatments for Humans

Sep. 26, 2026 Scientists have mapped the genetics of cat cancer on an unprecedented scale and found surprising similarities with tumors in humans. The findings could help bring precision cancer treatments to cats ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:40pm EDT

Scientists Changed How Zoo Lions Eat. Their Wild Side Came out

Oct. 7, 2026 Giving zoo lions whole carcasses on a feast-and-fast schedule appears to bring out more natural behavior. The lions spent nearly three times longer feeding, engaged in more tearing and manipulating ...

Animals May Have Evolved 200 Million Years Earlier Than We Thought

Oct. 6, 2026 New research suggests animals could have evolved as early as 800 to 700 million years ago, roughly 200 million years earlier than some previous estimates. If so, the first animals may have lived ...

97-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal the Earliest Known Animal “GPS”

Oct. 2, 2026 Mysterious 97-million-year-old magnetic fossils may be the oldest evidence of an animal using Earth’s magnetic field like a built-in GPS. Their sophisticated magnetic structure could have helped an ...

One Tiny Chemical Difference Between RNA and DNA May Help Explain How Life Began

Oct. 1, 2026 Scientists may have found a clue to one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the origin of life: how fragile RNA molecules could gather and survive ...

This 245-Million-Year-Old Fossil Still Has Its Stomach and Intestines

Sep. 29, 2026 A 245-million-year-old marine reptile fossil preserves an astonishing amount of detail, including its stomach, liver, and intestines. The discovery reveals that Austronaga minuta was highly adapted ...

Scientists Were Wrong About This Strange Mammal for Nearly 40 Years

Sep. 28, 2026 A beautifully preserved fossil from Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has solved a mystery that puzzled paleontologists for nearly 40 years. Tamirkhan balcarceli shows that zhelestids were not early relatives ...

The Secret to Growing Food on Mars Could Be Fungi

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists think beneficial fungi could help transform nutrient-poor lunar and Martian regolith into a material capable of supporting crops. By helping plants access nutrients and withstand harsh ...

Don’t Toss Cannabis Leaves: They May Contain Rare Compounds With Medical Potential

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists discovered rare flavoalkaloids in Cannabis leaves for the first time, along with dozens of other phenolic compounds that had never been ...

Scientists Discovered Two Bizarre New Sea Spiders That Are “nightmare Fuel”

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists discovered two strange new sea spider species in the Salish Sea, including a hairy-legged, red-eyed species that can groom itself with ...

Scientists Gave Worms Magnetic Bacteria. They Lived 43% Longer

Sep. 24, 2026 A magnet-producing bacterium extended the average lifespan of C. elegans worms by more than 43% while helping protect their neurological and intestinal health. Researchers traced much of the effect ...

This Deep-Sea Enzyme Survives Heat That Destroys Most Proteins

Sep. 19, 2026 A deep-sea microbe uses an exceptionally heat-resistant enzyme to turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia at temperatures that would destroy most proteins. Its unusual structure and a newly observed ...

A 240-Million-Year-Old Fossil Just Changed the Dinosaur Timeline

Sep. 16, 2026 A newly identified 240-million-year-old animal from Tanzania is forcing scientists to rethink the early dinosaur timeline. Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda belongs to a group previously known only from ...

66-Million-Year-Old Feather in Dinosaur Poop May Reveal Why Birds Survived the Asteroid

Sep. 11, 2026 A feather discovered inside 66-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur poop may help explain why modern birds survived the asteroid catastrophe. The extinct bird it came from had more primitive ...

Scientists Finally See DNA “zip” Itself Together for the First Time

Sep. 9, 2026 Scientists have directly observed how two negatively charged DNA molecules can pair up despite normally repelling each other. Positively charged metal ions appear to bridge the gap, helping matching ...

A Broken Rib from the World’s Largest T. Rex Hid a 66-Million-Year-Old Secret

Sep. 23, 2026 A broken rib from Scotty, the largest known T. rex skeleton, contains an extraordinary fossilized network of blood vessels formed while the dinosaur was healing. Scientists used neutron and X-ray ...

Life Uses 4 DNA Letters. Scientists Just Made 8 Work

Sep. 5, 2026 Researchers at UC San Diego have demonstrated that a key cellular enzyme can accurately read an eight-letter genetic alphabet, doubling the four letters used by all known life on Earth. Detailed ...

Scientists Discover Why Snake Embryos Twist Into Spirals

Sep. 1, 2026 Snake embryos begin life curled into a distinctive right-handed spiral, and scientists may finally know why. Their bodies grow faster than their guts, creating a tether that forces the lengthening ...

The Secret to Longer Life May Be Hidden in Bat DNA

Sep. 11, 2026 Long-lived bats appear to combine powerful immune defenses with unusual strategies for eliminating damaged cells, potentially helping them avoid cancer and disease for decades. Researchers hope these ...

324-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals How Insects Conquered Land

Aug. 27, 2026 Ancient fossils suggest insects conquered land through a long amphibious phase rather than making an abrupt jump from water to dry ground. A newly identified 324-million-year-old species still ...

NASA-Backed Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Edible Cookies

Sep. 13, 2026 Scientists have engineered yeast to turn PET plastic and agricultural waste into ingredients for protein-rich, 3D-printed cookies called µBites. Developed partly for NASA’s Deep Space Food ...

Bird Flu Is Spreading. Your Backyard Feeder Could Make It Worse

Aug. 24, 2026 Backyard bird feeders could become unexpected hotspots for H5N1 as Australia’s bird flu outbreak spreads, bringing species together in ways that rarely occur naturally. Experts say stopping feeding ...

A Hidden “on Switch” in Human DNA Has Finally Been Decoded

Aug. 23, 2026 Researchers have used AI to uncover the DNA signature of a key genetic “switch” involved in turning genes on. After analyzing about 500,000 DNA sequences, the model identified the initiator in ...

Scientists Find Hidden “highways” Guiding Animal Evolution

Aug. 25, 2026 A sweeping analysis of thousands of animal genomes suggests that chromosomes do not evolve randomly but instead follow a limited number of irreversible “evolutionary highways.” These one-way ...

NASA Finds Earth Microbes Could Survive on the Moon

Aug. 25, 2026 NASA scientists found that microbes brought by astronauts could survive in cold, shadowed niches around the Moon’s South Pole, potentially complicating future searches for pristine lunar chemistry. ...

MIT Turns Bacteria Into Living Transistors

Sep. 4, 2026 MIT researchers have created bacterial “transistors” that can be wired together into living circuits capable of performing calculations and directing chemical signals. One day, these biological ...

Animals Have Been Eating Nature’s Original Bioplastic for Millions of Years

Aug. 17, 2026 Nature invented biodegradable plastic long before humans did—and animals may have been feeding on it for hundreds of millions of years. Researchers discovered that dozens of animal species possess ...

The U.S. Eradicated This Flesh-Eating Parasite. Now It’s Back

Sep. 15, 2026 The flesh eating New World screwworm has returned to the United States, threatening livestock, wildlife, pets and potentially people as it spreads north. A new UC San Diego tracking system aims to ...

Scientists Find Evidence for Two Origins of Life on Earth

Aug. 12, 2026 Scientists probing life’s deepest origins have uncovered evidence that the first free-living cells may have emerged not once, but twice. The findings suggest a striking possibility: life may share ...

Ancient Arctic Carbon Is Pouring Into the Sea, but the Seabed Captures Most of It

Aug. 3, 2026 Thawing Arctic permafrost is releasing ancient carbon into the ocean, raising fears that microbes could turn it into greenhouse gases and accelerate climate change. But sediment cores collected near ...

Two Deadly Flowers Could Inspire Powerful New Medicines

Aug. 3, 2026 Scientists have figured out how two famously poisonous plants create chemicals with surprising medical potential. After tracking thousands of genes in wolfsbane and larkspur, they identified six ...