Looking for LUCA, the last universal common ancestor

Around 4 billion years ago there lived a microbe called LUCA: the Last Universal Common Ancestor. There is evidence that it could have lived a somewhat 'alien' lifestyle, hidden away deep underground in iron-sulfur rich hydrothermal ...

How microbes living in the gut affect the brain and behaviour

Researchers at the University of Oxford have proposed an evolutionary framework to understand why microbes living in the gut affect the brain and behaviour, published in Nature Reviews Microbiology. Katerina Johnson (Department ...

Vital interplay between microorganisms and extracellular minerals

Some minerals abundant in soils and in aquatic and subsurface sediments electronically support microbial growth by supplying electrons or storing them as "environmental batteries," according to this new review article. Microbial ...

What is CRISPR? And how can it be used to turn genes 'off'?

CRISPR systems have been a hot research topic since they were shown to have utility as genetic engineering tools in 2012. And they're often explained in a way that most folks can understand. But those explanations often overlook ...

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