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…
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…
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 […]
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.
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.