News
The sheer volume of cyanobacteria in the oceans makes them major players in the global carbon cycle and responsible for as much as a third of the carbon fixed. These photosynthetic microbes, which include Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus, are…
Researchers from Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Oregon State University, and Zoo Atlanta report that sidewinders improve their ability to traverse sandy slopes by simply increasing the amount of their body area in contact with the granular…
Researchers have developed an automated imaging technique for measuring and analyzing the root systems of mature plants. The work could help plant scientists improve food crops to help meet the needs of a growing world population.
A study of 338 patients with coronary artery disease has identified a gene expression profile associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular death. Used with other indicators such as biochemical markers and family history, the profile – based…
According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-evolutionary changes in species may reverse traditional predator-prey population cycles, creating the appearance that prey are eating the predators…
From time to time, living cells will accidently make an extra copy of a gene during the normal replication process. Throughout the history of life, evolution has molded some of these seemingly superfluous genes into a source of genetic novelty,…
The National Science Foundation has awarded a 5 year grant of approximately $2.0 million to fund a collaborative group of scientists: Mark Young (PI, Montana State), Joshua Weitz (Co-PI, Georgia Tech), and Rachel Whitaker (Co-PI, UIUC) to study…
Growing concern about bacterial resistance to existing antibiotics has created strong interest in new approaches for therapeutics able to battle infections. The work of an international team of researchers that recently solved the structure of a…
Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern…
Researchers recently created a biophysical model of the response of a Gram-positive bacterium to the formation of a hole in its cell wall, then used experimental measurements to validate the theory, which predicted that a hole in the bacteria…
Dr. Joshua Weitz (Associate Professor, School of Biology) has been awarded a grant from the Program in Biological Oceanography on "Understanding the Effects of Complex Phage-Bacteria Infection Networks on Ocean Ecosystems". The award provides…
In the current issue of the journal Science, researchers demonstrate how a new virus evolves, which sheds light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations.
A meta-analysis of bacteria-virus infections reveals a nested structure, with hard-to-infect bacteria infected by generalist viruses and easy-to-infect bacteria attacked by generalist & specialist viruses.
By studying a plant's vein network pattern, biologists can investigate the plant's response to changing environments. To quickly examine leaves, researchers developed software that extracts information about macroscopic vein structures directly from…