The pathogenic bacterium Listeria monocytogenes spreads infection using a two-tiered strategy, where most bacteria spread locally but a few 'pioneers' move further, increasing the likelihood of a persistent infection.

High-throughput droplet-based cultivation of gut microbes reduces biases of traditional cultivation strategies and thereby enables detection of difficult-to-culture organisms, which is required in applications such as antibiotic screening.

Experiments and mathematical modelling show that rare nitrogen fixing symbionts invade a population dominated by non-fixing bacteria across plant generations, above a threshold of a combination of ecological factors.

A systematic review shows no evidence of harm or benefit of antibiotic combinations on resistance evolution as clinical data lack statistical power to draw definitive conclusions, highlighting a knowledge gap.

Confined magnetotactic bacteria exhibit circling and U-turn trajectories explained by a competition of alignment with a magnetic field and alignment along the confining walls as well as considerable cell-to-cell heterogeneity.

Horizontal gene transfer between distantly related bacterial species is frequent and widespread and can be efficiently identified using alignment-free methods.

Many bacteria use a tiny riboswitch aptamer to sense the thiamin precursor HMP-PP to regulate the production of another thiamin precursor HET-P to efficiently biosynthesize this essential coenzyme.

Domestication of endosymbiotic Mollicutes may have resolved nitrogen-recycling challenges for attine ants and enabled the evolutionary derived leaf-cutting ants to fully exploit their herbivorous niches.

Parallel horizontal gene transfer has spread a bacteriolytic gene family to all domains of life, and has bestowed a niche-transcending adaptation in recipients that must deploy antibacterial molecules to survive in a bacterial world.

A mutation in a transcription factor makes people susceptible to Trophyrema whippelii, the bacterium that causes a rare condition called Whipple's disease.