One of life's many mysteries is how it ended up choosing only a set of 20 amino acids to build proteins for its wide catalog of organisms, from single-celled bacteria to behemoth whales. From a ...

Scientists have mapped in unprecedented detail the structure of Vibrio bacteria, which can cause life-threatening infections ...

Bacteria are traditionally imagined as single-cell organisms, spread out sparsely over surfaces or suspended in liquids, but in many environments the true bacterial mode of growth is in sticky ...

A project at the University of Tokyo has developed a mid-infrared microscopy platform offering an improved view of structures inside living bacteria. Described in Nature Photonics, the new nanoscope ...

Structural patterns can be created due to the chasing interactions between two bacterial species. In a new model, scientists describe how interactions on the individual level can result in a global ...

A system once tied to DNA organization in cyanobacteria has evolved into a structure that shapes the cell itself. This shift ...

RIKEN researchers have found out how light energy harvested by pigments besides chlorophyll is transferred to the molecular ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Quick, can you describe your grandparents?

Scientists are uncovering the surprising ways bacteria and archaea differ — and how these differences could be turned into weapons against dangerous infections. From bacteria’s peptidoglycan walls to ...

Even organisms without brains can remember their past: Scientists found that Escherichia coli bacteria form their own kind of memories of exposure to nutrients. They pass these memories down to future ...