Microbiology News

December 4, 2025

Top Headlines

Scientists Capture Flu Viruses Surfing Into Human Cells in Real Time

Dec. 4, 2025 Scientists have captured a never-before-seen, high-resolution look at influenza’s stealthy invasion of human cells, revealing that the cells aren’t just helpless victims. Using a groundbreaking imaging technique, researchers discovered that our ...

New Research Reveals the Hidden Organism Behind Lake Erie’s Toxic Blooms

Dec. 2, 2025 Dolichospermum, a type of cyanobacteria thriving in Lake Erie’s warming waters, has been identified as the surprising culprit behind the lake’s dangerous saxitoxins—some of the most potent natural neurotoxins known. Using advanced genome ...

Bird Flu’s Surprising Heat Tolerance Has Scientists Worried

Nov. 28, 2025 Researchers discovered why bird flu can survive temperatures that stop human flu in its tracks. A key gene, PB1, gives avian viruses the ability to replicate even at fever-level heat. Mice experiments confirmed that fever cripples human-origin flu ...

Stunning New 3D Images Reveal Yellow Fever’s Hidden Structure

Nov. 27, 2025 University of Queensland researchers visualized yellow fever virus particles at near-atomic detail, uncovering major structural differences between vaccine and virulent strains. The insights could lead to better vaccines and treatments for yellow ...

This Tiny Microbe May Be the Key to Fighting Forever Chemicals

Nov. 27, 2025 A photosynthetic bacterium shows a surprising ability to absorb persistent PFAS chemicals, offering a glimpse into biological tools that might one day tackle toxic contamination. Researchers are now exploring genetic and synthetic biology approaches ...

Tiny Yellowstone Quakes Ignite a Surge of Hidden Life Underground

Nov. 25, 2025 Researchers studying Yellowstone’s depths discovered that small earthquakes can recharge underground microbial life. The quakes exposed new rock and fluids, creating bursts of chemical energy that microbes can use. Both the water chemistry and the ...

CRISPR Wheat That Makes Its Own Fertilizer

Nov. 24, 2025 UC Davis researchers engineered wheat that encourages soil bacteria to convert atmospheric nitrogen into plant-usable fertilizer. By boosting a natural compound in the plant, the wheat triggers bacteria to form biofilms that enable nitrogen ...

Scientists Capture Stunning Real-time Images of DNA Damage and Repair

Nov. 23, 2025 Scientists have created a live-cell DNA sensor that reveals how damage appears and disappears inside living cells, capturing the entire repair sequence as it unfolds. Instead of freezing cells at different points, researchers can now watch damage ...

This Engineered Fungus Cuts Emissions and Tastes Like Meat

Nov. 21, 2025 Scientists used CRISPR to boost the efficiency and digestibility of a fungus already known for its meatlike qualities. The modified strain grows protein far more quickly and with much less sugar while producing substantially fewer emissions. It also ...

Scientists Grow a Tiny Human “Blood Factory” That Actually Works

Nov. 20, 2025 Researchers have recreated a miniature human bone marrow system that mirrors the real structure found inside our bones. The model includes the full mix of cells and signals needed for blood production and even maintains this process for weeks. It ...

Scientists Finally Discover What’s Fueling Massive Sargassum Blooms

Nov. 19, 2025 Massive Sargassum blooms sweeping across the Caribbean and Atlantic are fueled by a powerful nutrient partnership: phosphorus pulled to the surface by equatorial upwelling and nitrogen supplied by cyanobacteria living directly on the drifting algae. ...

Amazon Scorpion Venom Shows Stunning Power Against Breast Cancer

Nov. 18, 2025 Scientists are turning venom, radioisotopes, engineered proteins, and AI into powerful new tools against cancer. From Amazonian scorpions yielding molecules that kill breast cancer cells as effectively as chemotherapy, to improved fibrin sealants ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:58pm EST

Hornet-Eating Frog Shows Remarkable Venom Resistance

Dec. 4, 2025 Experiments reveal that pond frogs can eat highly venomous hornets without suffering noticeable damage, even after repeated stings. Most frogs successfully consumed hornets, including the notorious ...

A Tiny Citrus Pest Is Hiding a Biological Mystery Never Seen Before

Dec. 4, 2025 Scientists have discovered a strange tubular structure inside Profftella, a symbiotic bacterium in the Asian citrus psyllid. These long, helical tubes, filled with ribosomes, show a complexity not ...

Doomed Ants Send a Final Scent to Save Their Colony

Dec. 3, 2025 Ant pupae that are fatally sick don’t hide their condition; instead, they release a special scent that warns the rest of the colony. This signal prompts worker ants to open the pupae’s cocoons ...

A Tiny Ocean Worm Just Revealed a Big Secret About How Eyes Evolve

Dec. 2, 2025 Scientists found that adult bristleworm eyes grow continuously thanks to a rim of neural stem cells similar to those in vertebrate eyes. This growth is surprisingly regulated by environmental light ...

Wild Chimps Consume More Alcohol Than Anyone Expected

Dec. 1, 2025 Chimpanzees naturally ingest surprising amounts of alcohol from ripe, fermenting fruit. Careful measurements show that their typical fruit diet can equal one to two human drinks each day. This ...

Dinosaur Mummy Found With Hooves and a Hidden Crest

Nov. 30, 2025 Scientists have reconstructed the most complete and lifelike profile of Edmontosaurus annectens thanks to an extraordinary preservation process called clay templating, in which a thin clay film ...

Archaeologists Uncover a 2,000-Year-Old Crop in the Canary Islands

Nov. 26, 2025 Scientists decoded DNA from millennia-old lentils preserved in volcanic rock silos on Gran Canaria. The findings show that today’s Canary Island lentils largely descend from varieties brought from ...

This Tiny Plant Survived the Vacuum of Space and Still Grows

Nov. 24, 2025 Moss spores survived an extended stay on the outside of the ISS and remained capable of germinating once back on Earth. Their resilience to vacuum, extreme temperatures, and UV radiation surprised ...

The Surprising Reason Bees Replace Their Queens

Nov. 22, 2025 Worker bees stage coordinated revolts when viral infections weaken their queen and lower her pheromone output. This disruption drives many of the queen failures that beekeepers struggle with today. ...

A 2,000-Year Mystery in Chameleon Eyes Is Finally Solved

Nov. 19, 2025 Chameleons’ extraordinary ability to move their eyes independently stems from a previously overlooked anatomical marvel: long, tightly coiled optic nerves hidden behind their bulging eyes. Modern ...

Secret Chemical Traces Reveal Life on Earth 3. 3 Billion Years Ago

Nov. 18, 2025 Researchers have discovered chemical traces of life in rocks older than 3.3 billion years, offering a rare look at Earth’s earliest biology. By combining advanced chemical methods with artificial ...

A Tiny Ancient Virus Reveals Secrets That Could Help Fight Superbugs

Nov. 17, 2025 Scientists mapped the Bas63 bacteriophage in unprecedented detail, uncovering how its tail machinery infects bacteria. The structure reveals rare whisker-collar features and distant evolutionary ties ...

Scientists Recover 40,000-Year-Old Mammoth RNA Still Packed With Clues

Nov. 15, 2025 Researchers have sequenced the oldest RNA ever recovered, taken from a woolly mammoth frozen for nearly 40,000 years. The RNA reveals which genes were active in its tissues, offering a rare glimpse ...

Brain-Like Learning Found in Bacterial Nanopores

Nov. 11, 2025 Scientists at EPFL have unraveled the mystery behind why biological nanopores, tiny molecular holes used in both nature and biotechnology, sometimes behave unpredictably. By experimenting with ...

Scientists Uncover a Hidden Universal Law Limiting Life’s Growth

Nov. 11, 2025 Japanese researchers uncovered a universal rule describing why life’s growth slows despite abundant nutrients. Their “global constraint principle” integrates classic biological laws to show ...

A Tiny Worm Just Revealed a Big Secret About Living Longer

Nov. 13, 2025 Scientists studying aging found that sensory inputs like touch and smell can cancel out the lifespan-boosting effects of dietary restriction by suppressing the key longevity gene fmo-2. When ...

A 480-Million-Year-Old Parasite Still Infects Oysters Today

Nov. 5, 2025 Researchers discovered fossil evidence showing that spionid worms, parasites of modern oysters, were already infecting bivalves 480 million years ago. High-resolution scans revealed their distinctive ...

Scientists Shocked to Find E. Coli Spreads as Fast as the Swine Flu

Nov. 4, 2025 Researchers have, for the first time, estimated how quickly E. coli bacteria can spread between people — and one strain moves as fast as swine flu. Using genomic data from the UK and Norway, ...

Scientists Teach Bacteria the Octopus’s Secret to Camouflage

Nov. 3, 2025 Researchers at UC San Diego have figured out how to get bacteria to produce xanthommatin, the pigment that lets octopuses and squids camouflage. By linking the pigment’s production to bacterial ...

A New Microscopy Breakthrough Is Revealing the Oceans’ Invisible Life

Nov. 2, 2025 A pandemic-era breakthrough has allowed scientists to literally expand our view of plankton. By using ultrastructure expansion microscopy, researchers visualized the inner workings of hundreds of ...

Japan’s New “samurai Jellyfish” Is Simply Stunning

Nov. 1, 2025 Scientists in Japan have discovered Physalia mikazuki, a previously unknown species of Portuguese man-of-war, in northern waters for the first time. DNA and anatomical analysis confirmed it as ...

Life Found in a Place Scientists Thought Impossible

Nov. 9, 2025 Deep beneath the ocean, scientists uncovered thriving microbial life in one of Earth’s harshest environments—an area with a pH of 12, where survival seems nearly impossible. Using lipid ...

Soil Microbes Remember Drought and Help Plants Survive

Nov. 2, 2025 Researchers discovered that soil microbes in Kansas carry drought “memories” that affect how plants grow and survive. Native plants showed stronger responses to these microbial legacies than ...

Ancient Viruses Hidden Inside Bacteria Could Help Defeat Modern Infections

Nov. 3, 2025 Penn State scientists uncovered an ancient bacterial defense where dormant viral DNA helps bacteria fight new viral threats. The enzyme PinQ flips bacterial genes to create protective proteins that ...

Scientists Just Found out How Corals Rebuild Themselves on the Reef

Oct. 29, 2025 Researchers at QUT uncovered how corals reattach to reefs through a three-phase process involving tissue transformation, anchoring, and skeleton formation. Differences among species reveal why some ...

It Sounds Creepy, but These Scientific Breakthroughs Could Save Lives

Oct. 30, 2025 From mini-brains to spider-inspired gloves and wolf apple coatings, scientists are turning eerie-sounding experiments into real innovations that could revolutionize health and sustainability. ...

Cockroaches Are Secretly Poisoning Indoor Air

Nov. 4, 2025 Cockroach infestations don’t just bring creepy crawlers, they fill homes with allergens and bacterial toxins that can trigger asthma and allergies. NC State researchers found that larger ...

Scientists Turn Flower Fragrance Into a Mosquito Killer

Oct. 27, 2025 A team of researchers has developed a floral-scented fungus that tricks mosquitoes into approaching and dying. The fungus emits longifolene, a natural scent that irresistibly draws them in. It’s ...

Living Computers Powered by Mushrooms

Oct. 26, 2025 Scientists have found that mushrooms can act as organic memory devices, mimicking neural activity while consuming minimal power. The Ohio State team grew and trained shiitake fungi to perform like ...

Before Plants or Animals, Fungi Conquered Earth’s Surface

Oct. 28, 2025 Fungi’s evolutionary roots stretch far deeper than once believed — up to 1.4 billion years ago, long before plants or animals appeared. Using advanced molecular dating and gene transfer analysis, ...