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Helping plants and bacteria work together reduces fertiliser need

Helping to promote the natural relationship between plants and bacteria could reduce reliance on environmentally damaging fertilisers, a study has found.


Bacteria communicate like us – and we could use this to help address antibiotic resistance

Like the neurons firing in human brains, bacteria use electricity to communicate and respond to environmental cues. Now, researchers have discovered a way to control this electrical signalling in bacteria, to better understand resistance to antibiotics.



Minimum energy requirements for microbial communities to live predicted

A microbial community is a complex, dynamic system composed of hundreds of species and their interactions, they are found in oceans, soil, animal guts and plant roots. Each system feeds the Earth’s ecosystem and their own growth, as they each have their own metabolism that underpin biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have produced an extendable thermodynamic model for simulating the dynamics of microbial communities.

Wed 06 May 2020, 09:28 | Tags: Plants, School of Life Sciences, Environment, bacteria, Sciences

Bacteria such as E. coli detected in minutes by new technology from the University of Warwick

Scientists at the University of Warwick have discovered that healthy bacteria cells and cells inhibited by antibiotics or UV light show completely different reactions to electrical stimulus. The findings could lead to the development of medical devices which can rapidly detect live bacterial cells, evaluate the effects of antibiotics on growing bacteria colonies, or reveal antibiotic-resistant bacteria.


Bacteria-fighting polymers created with light

Hundreds of polymers – which could kill drug-resistant superbugs in novel ways – can be produced and tested using light, using a method developed at the University of Warwick


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