Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a species of bacteria that, when organized on a surface to form a community known as a biofilm, causes lethal infections in cystic fibrosis patients and resists treatment with antibiotics.

A UCLA-led research team has uncovered a key mechanism controlling initial biofilm formation in Pseudomonas, in which cells sense and follow sugar-based trails secreted by other bacteria to organize themselves into a colony on a surface.

This discovery could lead to treatments for deadly infections in people with cystic fibrosis and in hospitalized patients on ventilators, as well as solutions for problems in industry that are rooted in the presence of bacterial biofilms.

An Ocean Networks Canada supported experiment has revealed the absence of the “bone devourer,” Osedax, on submerged whale bones, bringing scary lessons about climate change and potential species loss. 

Research uses low-cost, light-weight earthquake-monitoring tools to measure how towering cacti resonate in response to wind and ground motion. University of Utah geologist Jeff Moore unlocks the dynamic properties and structural properties of saguaro without harming them. 

What do honey bees and electric power grids have in common? More than you might think, according to Wangda Zuo, professor of architectural engineering at Penn State. Zuo is leading a new project funded by a $1 million award from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate how coordinating and controlling distributed energy resources — similar to how honey bees regulate their colony’s resources — may help improve the distribution resiliency of electric grids.  

Researchers from the University of South Florida have used artificial intelligence and citizen science to identify what may be the first specimen of Anopheles stephensi — an invasive and deadly malaria-carrying mosquito — ever detected in Madagascar.

Xuanhong Cheng, a professor of bioengineering and materials science and engineering at Lehigh University, and her team are collaborating with materials science company Dow Inc. to study how microbes—microscopic organisms that digest sewage—interact with and potentially biodegrade viscosifiers, polymers used in consumer products like shampoos, detergents, and cosmetics to keep ingredients suspended and stable in solution. Their proposal recently received a three-year GOALI award from the National Science Foundation. The program funds projects that support university-industry collaborations.

Computer programming powers modern society and enabled the AI revolution but little is known about how our brains learn this essential skill. To help answer that question, Johns Hopkins University researchers studied the brain activity of university students before and after they learned how to code.