bacteria stories

Science! Turning newspaper into fuel for the car you already own

Thursday, August 25, 2011 - 9:07am

According to mad scientist Harshad "Mr. Fusion" Velankar*, we throw out a whopping 323 million tons of cellulosic materials that could be turned into usable car fuel. Well, after digging through some animal dung, he and his fellows think we could turn that junk into gas, without having to modify today's vehicles.

Eco-friendly houses could be made from bricks of bacteria

Evan Ackerman

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - 4:35pm

This innocent looking brick has been "biomanufactured" by mixing sand with a solution of bacteria that we've been promised is non-toxic and non-pathogenic, and if every brick in the world was made this way, it would spare the atmosphere of some 800 million tons of CO2 every year.

IBM's 'Terminator' nanoparticles hunt down drug-hardened bacteria

Evan Ackerman

Monday, April 4, 2011 - 12:44pm

Bacteria are clever little buggers. Every time we hit them with a new drug that kills 99.9% of them, that left-over 0.01% regroups and breeds and we're back to square one. We're going to run out of drugs before the bacteria run out of evolution — which means we need some new weapons in our arsenal.

The bacteria in your gut can store more data than your hard drive

Evan Ackerman

Monday, November 29, 2010 - 1:44pm

You probably have about a hundred trillion different microorganisms living in your gut right now, which is ten times the number of cells in your body. These microorganisms help keep you alive, but researchers have figured out how to get them to store your porn collection at the same time.

Satellite to test a new power source: astronaut poop

Evan Ackerman

Friday, November 19, 2010 - 10:22am

Everybody poops. Even astronauts. And when you live in a couple metal boxes 200 miles above the Earth, poop can be a real problem. The UN is launching a satellite full of excrement-eating bacteria that'll do some pooping of their own, powering a fuel cell as they go.

New bacteria developed that can fill cracks in concrete

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - 9:13am

Concrete eventually cracks. It just happens! But filling cracks in concrete can be a tedious process, and it's not generally at the top of most maintenance lists. But a new bacteria could fill concrete cracks with little work required.

Man builds DIY laser microscope, finds his water is full of bugs

Michael Trei

Friday, August 20, 2010 - 7:58pm

A drop of water might look perfectly clean to the naked eye, but get up close and you'll probably find lots of creep crawlies. All you need is a laser lit microscope to see it.

Solar toothbrush zaps oral bacteria without using toothpaste

Michael Trei

Friday, August 20, 2010 - 5:52pm

Brushing your teeth is a regular ritual for most people, and normally that involves both a toothbrush and toothpaste to remove the gunk that builds up on our teeth and gums. The solar toothbrush looks to eliminate the paste, harnessing the power of the sun to kill off all that nasty bacteria.

Researchers create micro-ear, a microscope for sound

Kevin Hall

Friday, February 26, 2010 - 2:23am

British researchers are working on developing a standard "micro-ear," a technology they think will one day be as commonplace as a microscope in the modern laboratory. At the moment, the micro-ear system works by measuring the vibrations a micro-organism makes...

Kick-flush your home toilet with FootFlush

Monday, March 24, 2008 - 12:25pm

When you're in bathrooms of dubious cleanliness, at the Port Authority say, or at a rest stop McDonald's, we bet you sometimes flush the toilet with your foot. No harm in that. But what if you never, ever want...

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More Sites

bacteria stories

Science! Turning newspaper into fuel for the car you already own

Eco-friendly houses could be made from bricks of bacteria

IBM's 'Terminator' nanoparticles hunt down drug-hardened bacteria

The bacteria in your gut can store more data than your hard drive

Satellite to test a new power source: astronaut poop

New bacteria developed that can fill cracks in concrete

Man builds DIY laser microscope, finds his water is full of bugs

Solar toothbrush zaps oral bacteria without using toothpaste

Researchers create micro-ear, a microscope for sound

Kick-flush your home toilet with FootFlush

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