Bacteria

Only a few genetic changes were enough to change an ordinary stomach bug into the bacteria responsible for the plague.

A new technique for finding and characterizing microbes has boosted the number of known bacteria by almost 50 percent, revealing a hidden world all around us.

By swapping ancient genes into modern E. coli, scientists hope to tease out the rules of evolution.

The soil teems with billions of hidden microbes. Researchers have begun to catalog how these organisms are changing the world.

Interest in a powerful DNA editing tool called CRISPR has revealed that bacteria are far more sophisticated than anyone imagined.

Bacteria may have helped single-celled organisms make the leap to multicellular animals.

Is the random noise inside a cell a nuisance, or have cells evolved ways to put it to work?

Some organisms respond to stress by driving up their mutation rate. Are they evolving specific mechanisms to enhance evolution in times of crisis?

An interview with the Berkeley chemist K. Birgitta Whaley on the promise and challenge of translating quantum biology into practical quantum devices.