Bacteria resisting viral infection can still sink carbon to ocean floor
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 19-Dec-2025 11:11 ET (19-Dec-2025 16:11 GMT/UTC)
In a new study, researchers have explored the mechanisms of phage resistance and its effects on the ecological jobs done by ocean bacteria. The team found that some of the mutations studied don’t interfere with – and may even enhance – the bacteria’s ability to carry out their job of capturing and sinking carbon to the ocean floor, thanks to giving the cells a “sticky” quality.
Brown University engineers showed that applying a temperature gradient across a solid-state electrolyte blocks destructive dendrite growth, offering a practical solution to a major barrier in battery technology.
Taking advantage of a "natural laboratory" in Iceland, a research team from the University of Arizona studied how microbes colonize fresh lava flows as soon as they cooled. The research provides insights into how a biological community is established over time, beginning the very moment new habitat is created.
A flutter of blue and yellow darts through a field in late May. Trees, shrubs and summer flowers fill the landscape. A blue-winged warbler is just within reach, with one swift motion it can be gently grasped, banded and studied to understand the health and evolution of one of North America’s most colorful birds. A practice once reserved for scientists, this moment is now possible anywhere in the world thanks to a virtual reality experience developed by scientists at Penn State.
The climate is changing and nowhere is it changing faster than at Earth’s poles. Researchers at Penn State have painted a comprehensive picture of the chemical processes taking place in the Arctic and found that there are multiple, separate interactions impacting the atmosphere.
University of Vermont scientists developed a first-of-its-kind study that tracks thousands of generations of digital organisms replaying evolution hundreds of times. Their results were surprising. In some cases, changing the environment helped populations find higher fitness peaks; in others, it hindered them. This gives a bird’s-eye view of how evolution played out across many different environments—something that would be impossible to test in the lab. The biggest takeaway is that starting point really matters. A population’s history shapes how high it can climb and how hard the path is to get there, which means one population may not represents an entire species.