Bacteria go to extremes to handle hard times: They hunker down, building a fortress-like shell around their DNA and turning off all signs of life. And yet, when times improve, these dormant spores can ...

Bacterial spores can survive for years, even centuries, without nutrients, resisting heat, UV radiation, and antibiotics. How inert, sleeping bacteria -- or spores -- spring back to life has been a ...

Facing starvation and stress conditions, some bacteria enter a dormant state in which life processes stop. Shutting down into a deep dormancy allows these cells, called spores, to withstand punishing ...

When the going gets tough for certain bacteria, they form into spores that can withstand the harshest of environments. Scientists have now utilized that fact to produce "living plastic" that ...

Strips of plain TPU (top) and "living" TPU (bottom) at different stages of decomposition over five months of being in compost. A new type of bioplastic could help reduce the plastic industry’s ...

Bacillus spores represent a remarkable survival strategy employed by a range of bacteria to endure adverse environmental conditions. The fully differentiated spores are formed through sporulation, a ...

Researchers led by a team at the University of California San Diego have developed a biodegradable form of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) that could help reduce the plastic industry’s environmental ...

New research has shed light on how transmission of gut bacteria influences its evolution and functions. Beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiome use different means to transmit from one person to ...

Sometimes procrastination pays off. When their environment gets too stressful, many bacteria stuff some of their innards into ultratough packets called spores, which shut down and wait—potentially for ...

Doctors & Dietitians Explain the Difference Between Spore-Based Probiotics and Regular Probiotics ...