Tag: spores

A Disturbing Twinkie That Has, So Far, Defied Science

Apparently Twinkies aren’t immortal. After discovering that his 8-year-old Twinkies “tasted like old sock,” biologist Colin Purrington sent them to a pair of scientists — Brian Lovett and Matt Kasson from West Virginia University in Morgantown — to study the kind of fungus growing on them. An anonymous reader shares the report from NPR: The researchers immediately thought some kind of…

Has microbial life been found on Venus?

Is there microbial life in the atmosphere of Earth’s closest neighbor, Venus? An international team of astronomers has found tentative but highly compelling evidence. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/life-on-venus-phosphine-biosignatures…

The Case for Life on Venus

CNET describes Venus as “a toxic, overheated, crushing hellscape where nothing can survive.” But they reported Friday that one astronomy team’s hypothesis published last month “could prompt a reevaluation of how and where we look for life in the universe.” Carl Sagan speculated about life in the clouds of Venus back in 1967, and just a few years ago, researchers suggested…

‘Zombie Cicadas’ Are Under the Influence of a Psychedelic, Mind-controlling Fungus

Slashdot reader quonset shares CNN’s report on “zombie cicadas” under the influence of “a psychedelic fungus” called Massospora containing the chemicals found in hallucinogenic mushrooms (citing a new study published in PLOS Pathogens).
After infecting its host, the fungus results in “a disturbing display of B-horror movie proportions,” West Virginia University said in a press release. First Massospora spores eat away at…

Crops sprayed with ‘barcoded’ spores could help trace food poisoning

Food poisoning outbreaks could be traced by spraying crops with microbial spores that have DNA ‘barcodes’, which have been shown to persist for months Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2245361-crops-sprayed-with-barcoded-spores-could-help-trace-food-poisoning/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Ancient Mass Extinction Tied To Ozone Loss, Warming Climate

Iwastheone shares a report from Science Magazine: The end of the Devonian period, 359 million years ago, was an eventful time: Fish were inching out of the ocean, and fernlike forests were advancing on land. The world was recovering from a mass extinction 12 million years earlier, but the climate was still chaotic, swinging between hothouse conditions and freezes so deep…

A rainforest in Antarctica during the age of dinosaurs

A temperate rainforest once flourished in Western Antarctica, just 560 miles from the South Pole, 90 million years ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/a-temperate-rainforest-in-antarctica-during-the-age-of-dinosaurs…

How the Rapid FDA-Approved Coronavirus Testing System Works

Tekla Perry writes: In 2001, a rapid, easy-to-use, PCR-based testing system for biological testing was still in prototype form when letters containing anthrax spores started arriving in the mailboxes of journalists and senators. Its creators at startup Cepheid quickly adapted it to test for anthrax, and now it is used to run that test as part of U.S. mail sorting systems….

Soil gets its smell from bacteria trying to attract invertebrates

Soil’s earthy smell comes from chemicals produced by bacteria called Streptomyces, which use the odour to attract springtails to help disperse their spores Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2239854-soil-gets-its-smell-from-bacteria-trying-to-attract-invertebrates/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…