Extreme Survival News

September 9, 2016

Arctic Methane Seeps: Specialized Life Forms

How Arctic Microbes Survive in Extreme Cold

Vibrio Bacteria Hitchhiking Sea to Sea On Plastic

How Bacteria Get Organized on a 'Racetrack'

Latest Headlines

updated 12:53am EDT

Doughnut in a Cage Holds the Key to Bacteria's Survival

Sep. 6, 2016 — Scientists have shed new light on how bacteria survive – they rely on a doughnut. The researchers found that bacteria have a unique doughnut-shaped protein that sits in a cage inside their cells ... read more

Trapped in a Nuclear Weapon Bunker Wood Ants Survive for Years in Poland

Aug. 30, 2016 — Having built their nest over the vertical ventilation pipe of an old nuclear weapon bunker in Poland, every year a large number of wood ants fall down the pipe to never ... read more

Fighting Barnacle Buildup With Biology

Aug. 22, 2016 — Biological growth along the bottoms of boats is more than just an eyesore. Biofouling, as it is known, slows down ships and impedes the readiness of emergency response and ... read more

New Discovery About Sensory System of Deep-Sea Fish

Aug. 19, 2016 — Little is known about most of the fishes that live deep in the oceans, where the pressures are extreme, light is nearly absent, and the water temperatures are especially low. ... read more

How Climate Change Will Hurt Humanity's Closest Cousins

Aug. 10, 2016 — The consequences of climate change are an increasing concern for humans around the world. How will we cope with rising sea levels and climbing temperatures? But it's not just ... read more

Unraveling the Jaw-Dropping Goblin Shark

Aug. 10, 2016 — Scientists have revealed goblin sharks' 'slingshot feeding' mechanism, which involves high-speed protrusion of their jaws. Goblin sharks have revealed a remarkable biting ... read more

Microbes Pump Electrons Into Magnetic Particles for Long Range Energy Transport

Aug. 5, 2016 — New research has found that bacteria are able to pump electrons, or "energy" directly into solid, conductive magnetic ... read more

Looking Back Into the Future: Are Corals Able to Resist a Declining pH?

Aug. 4, 2016 — Tropical Porites corals adjust their internal pH to enable themselves to form calcium carbonate and grow under elevated carbon dioxide concentrations -- even for a longer period of time. In order to ... read more

Antarctic Sea Ice May Be a Source of Mercury in Southern Ocean Fish and Birds

Aug. 1, 2016 — New research has found methylmercury -- a potent neurotoxin - in sea ice in the Southern Ocean. The results are the first to ... read more

Temperature Helps Drive the Emergence of Different Personalities in Spiders

July 21, 2016 — Not a single aggressive spider was able to reproduce at 93 degrees Fahrenheit and most of them died at that temperature. But when researchers added docile spiders to the mix, the aggressive spiders ... read more

Violent Coral Bleaching Caught on Camera

Scientists Keep Finding Strange, New Creatures In The Deep Sea

The Thai Village Using Cow Dung to Power Homes

A Majority Of The World's Largest Animals Could Be Extinct By 2100

New Step Towards Clean Energy Production from Enzymes

Sep. 1, 2016 — Oxygen inhibits hydrogenases, a group of enzymes that are able to produce and split hydrogen. This degradation is fatal for possible biotechnological applications of these enzymes for the production ... read more

A 'Smart Dress' for Oil-Degrading Bacteria

July 22, 2016 — The modified polyelectrolyte-magnetite nanocoating was applied to functionalize the cell walls of oil decomposing bacteria Alcanivorax ... read more

Oceanographers Grow, Sequence Genome of Ocean Microbe Important to Climate Change

July 19, 2016 — New light has been shed on a common but poorly understood bacteria known to live in low-oxygen areas in the ocean. By culturing and sequencing the microbe's entire genome, the oceanographers ... read more

Life at the Extremes

July 13, 2016 — In a new study, researchers from Italy examine the genes and proteins behind this organism's remarkable ability to cope with its extreme environment, which is not only unthinkably cold, but also ... read more

Ice Algae: The Engine of Life in the Central Arctic Ocean

July 12, 2016 — Algae that live in and under the sea ice play a much greater role for the Arctic food web than previously assumed. In a new study, biologists show that not only animals that live directly under the ... read more

Seaweeds Get Sick Too When They're Stressed

July 1, 2016 — Normally harmless bacteria can cause bleaching disease in seaweeds when the "trees of the ocean" become stressed by high water temperatures, researchers have discovered. Understanding these ... read more

First Sleeper Goby Cavefish in Western Hemisphere

June 30, 2016 — Researchers have described a new genus and species of cavefish from Mexico -- the Oaxaca Cave ... read more

Mountaineering Ants Use Body Heat to Warm Nests

June 29, 2016 — Underground army ants can keep their nests -- called bivouacs -- warm with their body heat; this social warming may enable fragile offspring to survive in chilly mountain forests, according to ... read more

See and Sort: Developing Novel Techniques to Visualize Uncultured Microbial Cell Activity

June 28, 2016 — Researchers used a recently refined technique to identify both individual active cells, and single clusters of active bacteria and archaea within microbial communities. Scientists are interested in ... read more

Cross-Respiration Between Oral Bacteria Leads to Worse Infections

June 28, 2016 — Researchers determined that two bacterial species commonly found in the human mouth and in abscesses, cooperate to make the pathogenic bacterium, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, more ... read more

New Blind and Rare Planthopper Species and Genus Dwells Exclusively in a Brazilian Cave

June 28, 2016 — This cave planthopper species new to science is only the second dwelling exclusively in the subterranean depths of Brazil from its family. Surviving without seeing the light of the day at any point ... read more

Serpentine Plants Survive Harsh Soils Thanks to Borrowed Genes

June 27, 2016 — Scientists have analyzed the genomes of plants that grow in harsh, serpentine soils to find out how they survive . It appears that they have used two strategies: adapting to their environment through ... read more

Good Bacteria Vital to Coral Reef Survival

June 23, 2016 — Good bacteria could be the key to keeping coral healthy, able to withstand the impacts of global warming and to secure the long term survival of reefs worldwide, say ... read more

Eating Air, Making Fuel

June 23, 2016 — Is it possible to "reprogram" an organism that is found higher in the food chain, which consumes sugar and releases carbon dioxide, so that it will consume carbon dioxide from the ... read more

Preparing for a New Relationship: Coral and Algae Interactions Explored

June 23, 2016 — Changes in gene expression were found when coral and algae begin to ... read more

The Call of the Sea: Mammalian Evolutionary Transitions Back to the Sea

June 22, 2016 — Though mammals adapted on land, a new study has shown that during three major independent evolutionary events, a number of mammals hearkened back to the ... read more

Heat Sickens Corals in Global Bleaching Event

June 20, 2016 — Australian scientists report that many surviving corals affected by mass bleaching from high sea temperatures on the northern Great Barrier Reef are the sickest they have ever ... read more

Improving Poor Soil With Burned Up Biomass

June 17, 2016 — Torrefied biomass can improve the quality of poor soil found in arid regions, new research shows. The study indicates that adding torrefied biomass to poor soil from Botswana increased water ... read more

Virus Uses 'Stolen' CRISPR to Hack Its Host's Immune System

June 14, 2016 — Microbiologists have discovered that the Cyanophage N1 virus carries a DNA sequence -- a CRISPR -- that is generally used by bacteria to fight off viral infection. The virus appears to use the stolen ... read more

Metal Exposure: Factor in Bat Population Decline

June 9, 2016 — Scientists have led the first full-scale national assessment of metal contamination in bats, showing that many bats in the UK contain levels of metals high enough to cause toxic ... read more

Thursday, September 1, 2016