Just like the government uses an Aadhaar number to uniquely identify an individual for social security purposes, a person’s DNA fingerprint can be used for biological purposes. This is why DNA ...

Although sweat itself doesn't smell, it contains a nutritious broth of salts, glucose, vitamins and amino acids, which serves as an all-you-can-eat buffet for bacteria that live there. And there a ...

Immune cells in the skin ‘cauterize’ open wounds and create ‘band-aids’ to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria and foreign molecules from injury sites, finds a study 1 in mice.

Scientists have discovered a protein that enables bacteria to shut down into dormant spores under extreme conditions. The process, which enables the bacteria to become practically indestructible ...

Probiotics support your health and overall well-being by crowding out harmful pathogens, improving your intestinal barrier function, and promoting neurotransmitter production, among other benefits ...

All modern humans share DNA from two ancient populations that split 1.5 million years ago and reunited through interbreeding about 300,000 years ago. The genetic mixture is approximately 80% from one ...

Before we understood that DNA was the genetic code, scientists knew that bacteria transferred it between cells. In 1928, 25 years before the structure of DNA was solved, British bacteriologist ...

Assembly of bacterial ring-shaped hexameric replicative helicases on single-stranded (ss) DNA requires specialized loading factors. However, mechanisms implemented by ...

“Wild stuff does happen.” The trillions of bacteria in our bodies regularly exchange DNA with each other, but the idea that their genes could end up in human DNA has been very controversial. In 2001, ...