A large team of medical, psychological and social researchers at University College Cork, in Ireland, working with a colleague from University Hospital Frankfurt, in Germany, has found that certain microbes in the gut biome ...
The microbiome offers a motherlode of data about health and disease, and new findings suggest that antibodies to gut microbes can determine how well patients respond to a new monoclonal antibody drug that delays the onset ...
A genomic study led by researchers at Stanford University, California, has performed ultra-deep metagenomic sequencing on 351 fecal samples from the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. In their paper, "Ultra-deep sequencing ...
An international team of medical researchers has found a link between major depressive disorder (MDD) and an interplay between the gut microbiome and the blood metabolome. For their study, reported in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, ...
Exposing newborn mice to vaginal microbes from stressed female mice may transfer the effects of stress to the newborns, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. These changes ...
Jul 9, 2018
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Stanford researchers found that manipulating the gut microbe Clostridium sporogenes changed levels of molecules in the bloodstreams of mice and, in turn, affected their health.
Nov 23, 2017
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Microbes that live in the gut don't just digest food. They also have far-reaching effects on the immune system. Now, a new study shows that a particular gut microbe can prevent severe flu infections in mice, likely by breaking ...
Aug 3, 2017
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The microbes living in a baby's gut during its first month of life may directly impact the developing immune system, leading to a higher risk of allergies and asthma later in childhood, according to a study by researchers ...
Sep 12, 2016
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A new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine could help pinpoint ways to counter the effects of the antibiotics-driven depletion of friendly, gut-dwelling bacteria.
Sep 1, 2013
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(Medical Xpress)—The importance of the bacteria that live within our digestive tracts is just beginning to be fully realized, and while it has long been known that they assist in digestion and absorption of nutrients, little ...
A microorganism (from the Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and ὀργανισμός, organismós, "organism"; also spelled micro organism or micro-organism) or microbe is an organism that is microscopic (usually too small to be seen by the naked human eye). The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design.
Microorganisms are very diverse; they include bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists; microscopic plants (called green algae); and animals such as plankton, the planarian and the amoeba. Some microbiologists also include viruses, but others consider these as non-living. Most microorganisms are unicellular (single-celled), but this is not universal, since some multicellular organisms are microscopic, while some unicellular protists and bacteria, like Thiomargarita namibiensis, are macroscopic and visible to the naked eye.
Microorganisms live in all parts of the biosphere where there is liquid water, including soil, hot springs, on the ocean floor, high in the atmosphere and deep inside rocks within the Earth's crust. Microorganisms are critical to nutrient recycling in ecosystems as they act as decomposers. As some microorganisms can fix nitrogen, they are a vital part of the nitrogen cycle, and recent studies indicate that airborne microbes may play a role in precipitation and weather.
Microbes are also exploited by people in biotechnology, both in traditional food and beverage preparation, and in modern technologies based on genetic engineering. However, pathogenic microbes are harmful, since they invade and grow within other organisms, causing diseases that kill millions of people, other animals, and plants.
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