The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
A team of scientists have unveiled a new tree of life, a diagram outlining the evolution of all living things. The researchers found that bacteria make up most of life's branches. And they found that much of that diversity has been waiting in plain sight to be discovered, dwelling in …
The expedited advent of urbanization and industrialization for economic growth has adversely affected the biological diversity, which is one of the major concerns of the developing countries. Microbes play a crucial role in decontaminating polluted sites and degrades pollution load of textile effluent. The present study was based on identification …
Ionizing radiation has been shown to produce negative effects on organisms, although little is known about its ecological and evolutionary effects. As a study model, we isolated bacteria associated with feathers from barn swallows Hirundo rustica from three study areas around Chernobyl differing in background ionizing radiation levels and one …
The relationship between microbial biodiversity and soil function is an important issue in ecology, yet most studies have been performed in pristine ecosystems. Here, we assess the role of microbial diversity in ecological function and remediation strategies in diesel-contaminated soils. Soil microbial diversity was manipulated using a removal by dilution …
Phylogeny is an ecologically meaningful way to classify plants and animals, as closely related taxa frequently have similar ecological characteristics, functional traits and effects on ecosystem processes. For bacteria, however, phylogeny has been argued to be an unreliable indicator of an organism’s ecology owing to evolutionary processes more common to …
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has become common in the Western world, but its causes remain unclear. With the dramatic increase of cases in Asia in recent years—echoing the disease’s drastic rise in the West decades earlier—investigators have another shot at studying environmental contributors to IBD as it emerges in new …
The production of biofuels from synthesis gas that utilizes a wide variety of biomass is an emerging concept, particularly with the focus on biomass-based economy. Biomass is converted to synthesis gas via gasification, which involves partial oxidation of the biomass at high temperature. This route of ethanol or liquid biofuel …
Until now, polymyxin resistance has involved chromosomal mutations but has never been reported via horizontal gene transfer. During a routine surveillance project on antimicrobial resistance in commensal Escherichia coli from food animals in China, a major increase of colistin resistance was observed. When an E coli strain, SHP45, possessing colistin …
Wastewater is increasingly being used in the agricultural sector to cope with the depletion of freshwater resources as well as water stress linked to changing climate conditions. As wastewater irrigation expands, research focusing on the human health risks is critical because exposure to a range of contaminants must be weighed …
The potential negative impact for human health of veterinary use of antimicrobials in prophylaxis, metaphylaxis and growth promotion in animal husbandry was first established in the 1960s and 1970s. Determination of the molecular structure of antimicrobial resistance plasmids at that time explained the ability of antimicrobial resistance genes to disseminate …
Although iron- and sulfate-reducing bacteria in subsurface environments have crucial roles in biogeochemical cycling of C, Fe, and S, how specific electron donors impact the compositional structure and activity of native iron- and/or sulfate-reducing communities is largely unknown. To understand this better, we created bicarbonate-buffered batch systems in duplicate with …
Antibiotics have saved countless lives and enabled the development of modern medicine over the past 70 years. However, it is clear that the success of antibiotics might only have been temporary and we now expect a long-term and perhaps never-ending challenge to fi nd new therapies to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. …
Antimicrobial resistance profiles and presence of resistance determinants and integrons were evaluated in Salmonellaenterica strains from Brazilian poultry. The analysis of 203 isolates showed that those from the poultry environment (88 isolates) were significantly more resistant to antimicrobials than isolates from other sources, particularly those isolated from poultry by-product meal …
The effect of the immunomodulator Natstim ® (lyophilised killed bacterial cells from Escherichia coli 29, Escherichia coli J5, Staphylococus aureus 27/58 at amounts corresponding to 10 10 cells of each species, stabilized with Dextrane 40) on growth performance and two factors of natural humoral immunity serum lysozyme concentrations and the …
Anthropogenic inputs influence the community structure and activities of microorganisms, which may impinge the functioning of estuarine and coastal ecosystem. The aim of the present study was to understand the influence of dissolved heavy metals (Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu and Zn) on community structure of cyanobacteria in a nutrient …
The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe …
Naegleria fowleri the causative agent of Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis, is ubiquitously distributed worldwide in various warm aquatic environments and soil habitats. The present study reports on the presence of Naegleria spp. in various water bodies present in Rohtak and Jhajjar district, of state Haryana, India. A total of 107 water …
Antigens encoded by the var gene family are major virulence factors of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, exhibiting enormous intra- and interstrain diversity. Here we use network analysis to show that var architecture and mosaicism are conserved at multiple levels across the Laverania subgenus, based on var-like sequences from …
A Bill further to amend the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010. This Act may be called the Environment Law (Amendment) Act, 2015. It is a draft of the proposed amendment in Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and National Green Tribunal Act, 2010. The proposed amendments …
Soil fungi have pivotal ecological roles as decomposers, pathogens and symbionts. Alterations to their diversity arising from climate change could have substantial effects on ecosystems, particularly those undergoing rapid warming that contain few species. Here, we report a study using pyrosequencing to assess fungal diversity in 29 soils sampled from …
