antibiotic resistance
James Tour on the practical side of intelligent design
Watching microorganisms bend “the rules” of evolution
Bacteria die screaming
Bacteria are smarter than we think
Bacteria harpoon DNA from their environment, to fight antibiotics
“Jumping genes” threaten the world’s antibiotics
Bacteria make complex antibiotics that give chemists “cold sweats”
From Josh Bloom at American Council for Science and Health: I recently wrote about three of the deadly neurotoxins being produced by cyanobacteria (aka blue-green algae) during an ongoing algae bloom in South Florida (See Florida’s Deadly Algae Bloom – Why Is It So Dangerous?). The toxins range from structurally simple and easy for organic chemists to synthesize in the lab to moderately complex and not simple at all. But there are numerous examples of plants, marine organisms, and bacteria that easily biosynthesize molecules that are so complex and difficult to make synthetically that chemistry grad students and post-docs who were given the unenviable task of doing so are probably still waking up in cold sweats thinking about what they Read More ›