The development of colonies of cells in choanoflagellates, water-dwelling organisms that feed on bacteria, is triggered by the presence of very low concentrations of a lipid molecule produced by certain types of bacteria.

A pattern recognition receptor called toll-like receptor 13 detects pathogens in a manner that is different to that seen in other pathogen sensors.

Research on humans and dogs reveals that the communities of microorganisms found on the skin, on the tongue and in the intestine are affected differently by age and cohabitation.

Melainabacteria, a candidate phylum related to Cyanobacteria, has been identified in gut and sediment samples by genomic analysis.

High-throughput sequencing has been used to analyze the microbiome of mouse corpses over a period of 48 days, and to provide an accurate estimate of the time since death.

The sequencing of microbial genomes reveals that the presence of a particular microbial species in the gut may increase the risk of the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis.

Genome neighborhood networks provide an efficient large-scale approach to mine metabolic pathway context for entire families of proteins and enzymes.

‘Optical tweezers’ measurements of single ribosomes and single mRNA molecules show that the translation rate depends exponentially on the applied force, and suggests that the ribosome functions as a Brownian ratchet.

Single-cell amplified genome sequencing uncovers virus-host interactions in uncultivated sulfur-oxidizing bacteria with relevance to coupled biogeochemical cycling in marine oxygen minimum zones.

The anticonvulsant drug lamotrigine inhibits bacterial ribosome biogenesis and reveals an unexplored role for initiation factor 2 (IF2) in ribosome assembly.