More than 3.5 billion years ago, the Earth was not the hospitable world we know today. The atmosphere lacked oxygen, the seas were acidic and rich in iron, and volcanic activity roared across a barren ...

Recent research has expanded on the idea that the trees around us are far more complex than they appear. Hidden beneath bark and throughout the roots are vast communities of microbes, trillions of ...

Open-access databases such as the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) contain more than 2.4 million bacterial genomes, and this number continues to grow rapidly. Until now, searching these vast ...

From Antarctic deserts to the human gut, scientists are uncovering hidden microbial worlds that could reshape medicine, ecology, and our understanding of life itself. An extremely shallow pond exists ...

If you liked this story, share it with other people. Microbial communities, though invisible to the naked eye, are vitally important to planetary health and to Earth’s ecosystems. But they are often ...

Microbes are everywhere! They are the unseen force that rules our planet – present, past and future. Ingenious tiny master chemists too small to see by naked eye yet so powerful and resilient they can ...

At the request of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, two committees established by the National Research Council organized workshops to identify promising new approaches to the ...