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#bacteria

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Leading scientists warn against developing ‘mirror-image’ #bacteria
Looking-glass organisms would pose existential threat, they say, mirror-image bacteria whose chemical makeup differs in a fundamental way from that of naturally existing organisms. Others say restrictions are premature.
It could be a nightmare lab leak: Synthetic bacteria escape the petri dish and unleash a global plague that life on Earth is incapable of defending itself against.
science.org/content/article/le
archive.ph/alkfb

How a Changing Climate Is Reshaping the Spread of Infectious Diseases

"...Then you have this convergence of crises—the #ClimateCrisis overlapping with the #PollutionCrisis. So you get this intersection between air pollution and respiratory #diseases, and then infectious diseases more broadly, all layered on top of a changing #climate.

When it comes to waterborne and foodborne diseases, the link to #ClimateChange is even more direct. As temperatures rise, you create more favorable conditions for #bacteria and other #pathogens to multiply. They thrive in warm environments—soil, water, contaminated areas—so warming can increase their abundance.

#ExtremeWeather events are also a big factor here. Aedes #mosquitoes need water to complete their life cycle—from egg to larva to pupa, it all happens in #water. When #floods occur, all the discarded #plastic and #trash lying around fill with water and becomes the ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes.

What’s interesting is that these diseases aren’t just associated with floods—they’re also linked to #droughts. That might seem counterintuitive at first, but in many parts of the world, people don’t have safe, reliable access to clean water, especially during drought conditions. So they store water in containers that aren’t properly sealed or protected, which too can become the perfect breeding sites for mosquitoes.

Infections—particularly vector-borne diseases—are increasingly reemerging and emerging in new areas around the world for a lot of different reasons. Climate change is definitely part of that, with rising temperatures and more extreme weather events like floods and droughts. But the way we live our lives and interact with the environment also plays a huge role. I mean, first and foremost, most of us now live in urban areas rather than rural ones..."

insideclimatenews.org/news/260

#Health
#ClimateChange

#GenerativeAI tool marks a milestone in #biology
Trained on a dataset of 100,000 organisms from #bacteria to #humans – and a few extinct ones – #Evo2 can predict the form and function of #proteins in the #DNA of all domains of life and run experiments in a fraction of the time it would take a traditional lab.The system can quickly determine what #gene mutations contribute to certain #diseases and what mutations are mostly harmless.
news.stanford.edu/stories/2025
#genetics

news.stanford.eduGenerative AI tool marks a milestone in biologyTrained on a dataset that includes all known living species – and a few extinct ones – Evo 2 can predict the form and function of proteins in the DNA of all domains of life.

The origin of the eukaryotic cell corresponded to the most significant increase in #complexity in the history of #life's evolution on Earth.

The billions of years that have passed since the fusion of an #archaea and a #bacteria have resulted in a lack of evolutionary intermediates in the phylogenetic tree until the emergence of the #eukaryotes.

Now researchers present theoretical and observational evidence that a phase transition in genetic complexity was involved.

phys.org/news/2025-04-evolutio

Phys.org · An evolutionary algorithmic phase transition 2.6 billion years ago may have sparked the emergence of eukaryotic cellsBy Kathrin Voigt

With new database, researchers may be able to predict rare 'milky seas' bioluminescent event
phys.org/news/2025-04-database

From Sailors to Satellites: A Curated Database of Bioluminescent #MilkySeas Spanning 1600-Present agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.co

"For generations, sailors around the globe have reported a mysterious phenomenon: Vast areas of the ocean glow steadily at night, sometimes for months on end. The light is bright enough to read by... it likely comes from activity of Vibrio harveyi #bacteria."

#MolecularClock analysis shows #bacteria used oxygen long before widespread photosynthesis
phys.org/news/2025-04-molecula

A geological timescale for bacterial #evolution and oxygen adaptation science.org/doi/10.1126/scienc

"the earliest aerobic transition occurred in an ancestor of photosynthetic #cyanobacteria, indicating that the ability to utilize trace amounts of oxygen may have allowed the development of genes central to oxygenic #photosynthesis."