Tag: bacteria

Sugar found to boost lethal bacteria

Operations on 6 December, 2019

Adelaide researchers find how a bacteria digests a sugar can be key to new treatments

The severity of a common and often lethal type of bacteria depends on its ability to process a type of sugar, research from the University of Adelaide reveals.

Streptococcus pneumoniae causes diseases of the lungs, blood, ear and brain, killing an estimated one million people every year. Moreover S. pneumoniae causes otitis media (infection of the middle ear), which devastates Aboriginal populations. It also rapidly develops resistance to antibiotics, making it challenging to treat.

It’s not just fish, plastic pollution harms the bacteria that help us breathe

Niall on 14 May, 2019

Plastic pollution can harm both the micro and macro-organisms living in our oceans. Photo: Kevin Krejci

Ten per cent of the oxygen we breathe comes from just one kind of bacteria in the ocean.

Now laboratory tests have shown that these bacteria are susceptible to plastic pollution, according to a study published in Communications Biology tonight.

“We found that exposure to chemicals leaching from plastic pollution interfered with the growth, photosynthesis and oxygen production of Prochlorococcus, the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria,” says lead author and Macquarie University researcher Dr Sasha Tetu.

“Now we’d like to explore if plastic pollution is having the same impact on these microbes in the ocean.”

Fresh Science 2012 state finalists

Operations on 17 September, 2012

This year, thanks to funding from the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science, Research and Tertiary Education through the Inspiring Australia initiative, and partners in other states, we’ve expanded the program to include state finals in: Queensland, supported by the University of Queensland; Victoria, supported by Scienceworks; New South Wales, supported by ANSTO and; South Australia […]

Oz research of note, 11 December, 2011

Science in Public on 12 December, 2011

A new sugar that could prevent heart disease; an Alzheimer’s vaccine that cures the memory of mice; real Star Wars bacteria and robot aircraft that copy insects are just some of the interesting stories that emerged from Australian research published in the last week. Find over a dozen other stories below.

Immune peacekeepers discovered

Science in Public on 18 October, 2011

How our skin says, “Don’t worry, these are good guys,” revealed today in PNAS.

There are more bacteria living on our skin and in our gut than cells in our body. We need them. But until now no-one knew how the immune system could tell that these bacteria are harmless.