But identical individuals with mutations in the spoIIR gene, which codes for a secreted protein involved in the mother-spore cell differentiation, can adopt any of four different fates, depending on ...

A team analyzed the amino acids that affect the formation of spores in a bacterium that causes food poisoning, Clostridium perfringens, and identified serine as an amino acid that inhibits spore ...

Solving a riddle that has confounded biologists since bacterial spores — inert, sleeping bacteria — were first described more than 150 years ago, researchers at Harvard Medical School have discovered ...

When the going gets tough for certain bacteria, they form into spores that can withstand the harshest of environments. Scientists have now utilized that fact to produce "living plastic" that ...

Scientists have demonstrated a creative solution to plastic pollution, one of our most pressing environmental problems. Plastic was embedded with spores of plastic-eating bacteria that are activated ...

Sometimes procrastination pays off. When their environment gets too stressful, many bacteria stuff some of their innards into ultratough packets called spores, which shut down and wait—potentially for ...

Researchers led by a team at the University of California San Diego have developed a biodegradable form of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) that could help reduce the plastic industry’s environmental ...

One reason plastic waste persists in the environment is because there’s not much that can eat it. The chemical structure of most polymers is stable and different enough from existing food sources that ...

A common cause of food poisoning, this bacteria’s growth might be regulated by the presence of certain amino acids. Food poisoning is a common, yet unpleasant, illness caused by eating contaminated ...