Who were our earliest ancestors? The answer could lie in a special group of single-celled organisms with a cytoskeleton similar to that of complex organisms, such as animals and plants. Ten years ago, ...

Groundwater hides dense communities of rock-bound microbes that shape water quality and help store carbon below ground.

Common gut bacteria use protein delivery systems to interact directly with human cells, reshaping how scientists view the ...

Conservation biologists propose a daunting task: protecting Earth’s diversity of bacteria and other microbes. By Carl Zimmer Hundreds of scientists have joined together to save a group of species from ...

Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria that constantly “sense” their surroundings to survive and thrive. New research shows that beneficial gut microbes, especially common Clostridia bacteria, can ...

With so many coral reefs bleaching and pangolins being poached, it may seem tone-deaf to call for the conservation of species that are too small to see with the naked eye. But that’s exactly what the ...

A collection of short dispatches from the field of climate microbiology conveys the contributions that single-celled life forms make to our climate system, and how we can work with them to address ...

Microbial communities, though invisible to the naked eye, are vitally important to planetary health and to Earth’s ecosystems. But they are often neglected in conservation strategies. Like other ...