For decades, textbooks and public-health campaigns repeated a striking claim: bacterial cells in the human body outnumber human cells by a factor of ten to one. That figure, repeated so often it ...

Bacteria can defend themselves against antibiotics with the help of an enzyme released by dying cells, according to a study ...

An innovative imaging technique developed at Carnegie Mellon University reveals single bacterial cells leaving their biofilm community. Watching the bacteria in real-time at high resolution affords ...

To address the global threat of antibiotic resistance, scientists are on the hunt for new ways to sneak past a bacterial cell's defense system. Taking what they learned from a previous study on cancer ...

A living, synthetic cell has been made by transplanting a complete genome into a dead bacterium, bringing it back to life. The breakthrough could help synthetic biology live up to its huge, but still ...

Lethal lettuce in Missouri. Murderous onions in Colorado. To biochemists at the University of Oklahoma, these aren't just headlines – they're warnings of the risks posed by drug-resistant bacteria and ...

Scientists have uncovered a surprising twist in how bacteria share genes—including those that spread antibiotic resistance. Tiny virus-like particles called gene transfer agents (GTAs), once ancient ...

As antibiotic-resistant infections rise and are projected to cause up to 10 million deaths per year by 2050, scientists are looking to bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, as an alternative.

Scientists assess bacterial growth trajectories to better predict infectious capacity and the conditions that aid proliferation. This article explores the key factors that influence bacterial ...