Metabolism

A collection of short dispatches from the field of climate microbiology conveys the contributions that single-celled life forms make to our climate system, and how we can work with them to address climate change.

A decade ago, Karen Lloyd discovered single-celled microbes living beneath the seafloor. Now she studies how they can survive in Earth’s crust, possibly for hundreds or thousands of years, and push life’s limits of time and energy.

In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.

Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ.

Slight changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats.

Micro decisions can have macro consequences. A soft matter physicist reveals how interactions within simple cellular collectives can lead to emergent physical traits.

A popular hypothesis for how the brain clears molecular waste, which may help explain why sleep feels refreshing, is a subject of debate.

A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life.

Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature.