Latest Archaea Stories

Aarhus University Single-celled archaea are invisible to the naked eye, and even when using a microscope, great care must be taken to observe them. An international team of researchers led by the Center for Geomicrobiology, Aarhus University, Denmark, has nevertheless succeeded in retrieving four archaeal cells from seabed mud and mapping the genome of each one. "Until now, nobody knew how these widespread mud-dwelling archaea actually live. Mapping the genome from the four archaeal...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Scientists writing in the journal Science say they have found the first direct evidence of life in the deeply buried oceanic crust. Researchers on board the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program's (IODP) research vessel JOIDES Resolution drilled a water depth of 1.5 miles and hundreds of feet of sediment into the oceanic crust off the west coast of North America. After examining rock samples from this depth, they were able to uncover...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online By studying microrganisms that thrive in the extreme environment of Antarctica, scientists from the University of Maryland have found new aspects of certain proteins that could enable life to function on Mars and in other extreme environments. According to their report in the journal BMC Biotechnology, the scientists found significant differences in the core proteins of Antarctic extremeophile bacteria known as Haloarchaea, when...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Important genetic clues about the history of a group of ancient microorganisms called archaea and the origins of life itself have been discovered by a team of researchers. Results of this first-of-its-kind study shed light on one of Earth's oldest life forms. "Archaea are an ancient form of microorganisms, so everything we can learn about them could help us to answer questions about the origin of life," explained William Whitman,...

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley Lab scientists join an international collaboration to understand how archaea and bacteria work together deep in a cold sulfur spring In the fall of 2010, Hoi-Ying Holman of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) was approached by an international team researching a mysterious microbial community discovered deep in cold sulfur springs in southern Germany. "They told me what they were doing...

Insights from Characterizing Extinct Human Gut Microbiomes A University of Oklahoma-led study has demonstrated that ancient DNA can be used to understand ancient human microbiomes.  The microbiomes from ancient people have broad reaching implications for understanding recent changes to human health, such as what good bacteria might have been lost as a result of our current abundant use of antibiotics and aseptic practices. Cecil M. Lewis Jr., professor of anthropology in the OU College...

Fecal samples from archeological sites reveal evolution of human gut microbes Extinct microbes in fecal samples from archaeological sites across the world resemble those found in present-day rural African communities more than they resemble the microbes found in the gut of cosmopolitan US adults, according to research published December 12 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Cecil Lewis and colleagues from the University of Oklahoma. The researchers analyzed 1400-8000-year-old fecal...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers making a genetic analysis of microbes living at a fracking site have uncovered some surprises. The scientists reported that they found very few genetic biomarkers for archaea, a domain of single-celled species found in high-salt environments and hot springs. Instead, they found many more for species that derive from bacteria. The team also reported that they found the populations of microbes changed dramatically over a...

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Researchers uncover how microorganisms on the ocean floor protect the atmosphere against methane Microbiologists and geochemists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, along with their colleagues from Vienna and Mainz, show that marine methane oxidation coupled to sulfate respiration can be performed by a single microorganism, a member of the ancient kingdom of the Archaea, and does not need to be carried out in collaboration with a bacterium, as...

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Methane supplies the energy for cell metabolism, but is not the carbon source Methane is formed under the absence of oxygen by natural biological and physical processes, e.g. in the sea floor. It is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the activity of microorganisms this gas is inactivated before it reaches the atmosphere and unfolds its harmful effects on Earth's climate. Researchers from Bremen have now proven that these...