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Live skin substitute to unlock new products
Many long-established skin products, such as shampoos and soaps, contain harmful or ineffective ingredients because effective testing methods were unavailable when they were developed. The first ever model of live skin with a full ecosystem of micro-organisms - created at the University of Leeds - has the potential to help develop dozens of new... view more... (2004-07-06)

Smithsonian scientists report new carbon dioxide study
Researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center report the results of a six-year experiment in which doubling the atmospheric greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in a scrub oak ecosystem caused a reduction in carbon storage in the soil.   view more (2007-03-13)

New Window Opens on the Secret Life of Microbes: Scientists Develop First Microbial Profiles of Ecosystems
Nowhere is the principle of "strength in numbers" more apparent than in the collective power of microbes: despite their simplicity, these one-cell organisms--which number about 5 million trillion trillion strong (no, that is not a typo) on Earth--affect virtually every ecological process, from the decay of organic material to the... view more... (2008-03-14)

Antibiotics Can Cause Pervasive, Persistent Changes to the Microbial Community in the Human Gut, MBL and Stanford Scientists Report
Using a novel technique developed by Mitchell Sogin of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) to identify different types of bacteria, scientists have completed the most precise survey to date of how microbial communities in the human gut respond to antibiotic treatment.   view more (2008-11-19)

All species are not created equal when assessing the impacts of species loss on ecosystems
Numerous studies have shown that when species are randomly lost from communities, ecosystem function declines. But such patterns of species loss do not reflect those in natural communities where major drivers of change, such as stress and disturbance, cause preferential loss of rare and uncommon species. In the June issue of Ecology Letters, Smith... view more... (2003-05-22)

Grazer diversity counteracts plant diversity effects on ecosystem functioning in seagrass beds
Several influential experiments have shown that high plant diversity enhances ecosystem productivity, animal diversity, and invasion resistance. Yet theory predicts that plant and herbivore diversity, which often co vary in nature, should have countervailing effects on ecosystem properties. In the July issue of Ecology Letters, Duffy, Canuel, and... view more... (2003-07-02)

Hydrothermal vents: Hot spots of microbial diversity
Thousands of new kinds of marine microbes have been discovered at two deep-sea hydrothermal vents off the Oregon coast by scientists at the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory) and University of Washington's Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean.   view more (2007-10-05)

Antimicrobial antibodies in celiac disease: Trick or treat?
Anti-microbial antibody formation has been reported in celiac disease.   view more (2009-08-27)

The effect of transgenic nematode resistance on non-target organisms in the potato rhizosphere
A paper published today in the December Issue of Journal of Applied Ecology by Cowgill et al describes the results of small-scale field trials that were used to assess the effect of PI-expressing potatoes on non-target soil organisms. The impact of a currently used PCN management option, the nematicide, aldicarb, on soil organisms was also studied.   view more (2002-11-26)

Gut check: Tracking the ecosystem within us
For more than 100 years, scientists have known that humans carry a rich ecosystem within their intestines. An astonishing number and variety of microbes, including as many as 400 species of bacteria, help humans digest food, mitigate disease, regulate fat storage, and even promote the formation of blood vessels.   view more (2007-06-26)

Marine bacterium suspected to play role in global carbon and nitrogen cycles
Scientists are now revisiting, and perhaps revising, their thinking about how Archaea, an ancient kingdom of single-celled microorganisms, are involved in maintaining the global balance of nitrogen and carbon.   view more (2005-09-23)

EPA teams with National Geographic Society and World Resources Institute to map ecosystem services
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is collaborating with the National Geographic Society and the World Resources Institute to develop tools that will help to fully account for the value of ecosystem services.   view more (2008-10-30)

Microorganisms one part of the solution to energy problem, says report
The answer to one of the world's largest problems - the need for clean, renewable sources of energy - might just come from some of the world's smallest inhabitants - bacteria - according to a new report, Microbial Energy Conversion, released by the American Academy of Microbiology.   view more (2006-11-17)

DOE JGI releases IMG 1.5 with curated archaeal genomes
Version 1.5 of the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) data management system of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has been released to the public.   view more (2006-06-28)

Origins of Life
The origin of life lies in unique ocean reefs, and scientists from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have developed an approach to help investigate them better.   view more (2006-11-20)

Climate change could impact vital functions of microbes
Global climate change will not only impact plants and animals but will also affect bacteria, fungi and other microbial populations that perform a myriad of functions important to life on earth.   view more (2008-06-03)

Catastrophic shift in species diversity and productivity of an ecosystem
Ecology and environmental management is largely predicated on the view that ecosystems respond to environmental changes in a smooth and straightforward way. However, in Ecology Letters, May, Schmitz reports on a long-term field experiment that may prompt a hard, critical look at this reigning view. In the experimental system, top predators... view more... (2004-05-04)

Reforestation using exotic plants can disturb the fertility of tropical soils
In many regions of the world, the impact of human activity on the environment intensified considerably over the past century. The high world population growth rate and the expansion of areas given over to crop production associated with climatic changes (longer periods of drought, irregular rainfall patterns) induced by global warming, have... view more... (2008-05-30)

DOE JGI releases experimental metagenomics data management & analysis system
To tackle the computational challenges of analyzing the complex world of microbial communities, the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has released to the worldwide research community IMG/M, an experimental metagenome data management and analysis system.   view more (2006-03-30)

Gray wolves feed the masses while hunters feed the few
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) and human hunters both provide resource subsidies to scavengers in Yellowstone National Park, USA, by provisioning them with the remains of their kills. Carrion from wolf versus hunter kills is much more dispersed in both time and space. In the November issue of Ecology Letters, scientists from Berkeley and Yellowstone... view more... (2003-10-08)
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