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Stories about: fungus


Fungus Found in Capri Sun Juice Drinks

The news that 5 types of fungus have been found in Capri Sun juice drinks is now making headlines. According to the researchers who made this discovery, none of the 5 types of fungus they have managed to pin down in said popular kids' juice drinks constitutes a major threat to public health. Thus, they say t...

3 May 2013
02:38 GMT

Study Shows That Fungus Can Help Clean Up the Environment

Just recently, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a new study that argues that an Ascomycete fungus can be used to clean up the environment and fight back the negative effects of industrial development. The way they explain it, the process seems fairly simple and easy to grasp: wh...

17 July 2012
03:26 GMT

Parasite Prevents Ants from Becoming Zombies

The zombie-ant fungus is renowned for its ability to infect ants, and then make the insects spread its spores before finally killing them. A new study demonstrates that the ants may not be alone in their fight against this invader. Another parasite that can infect them has “anti-zombification” effects. ...

7 May 2012
05:06 GMT

Fungus Causing White-Nose Disease in Bats Found

Over the past few years, biologists have noticed that numerous bat communities were falling prey to what was termed the white-nose syndrome (WNS). All attempts at figuring out what was causing the condition have failed until recently, when a team found the fungus responsible for the plight. In a paper published in ...

27 October 2011
03:47 GMT

One Step Closer to the First Stink Bug Repellent

Researchers have identified a natural substance in a fungus which infects the green foxtail plant, that might just be the first commercial repellent for stink bugs.Stink bugs are bugging people all over the world, as they invade territories and become pests to farm crops, and also because they emit a sickening odor w...

11 October 2010
03:53 GMT

Bee Colony Collapse Has Viral and Fungal Causes

A team of researchers led by research professor Jerry Bromenshenk from the University of Montana in Missoula, and including virologists and chemists from the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center and the Instituto de Ecologica AC in Mexico, has been working on the causes of the bee colonies collapse, ever sin...

9 October 2010
04:51 GMT

Parasites That Control the Mind Are Ancient

Biologists say that, while humans have been struggling to achieve methods of exercising mind control over each other, the animal kingdom has been doing it for millions of years. Scientists say that creatures controlling other animals' brains are not a new concept in nature. There are numerous cases in which...

18 August 2010
07:07 GMT

New Lethal, Airborne Fungus Found in Oregon

Six people in Oregon lost their lives after being infected with a new strain of airborne fungus. Experts investigating the new lethal agent say that the organism is highly virulent, and that it appears to be benefiting from the most suitable conditions for survival in the Pacific Northwest. The temperate climate here...

23 April 2010
05:57 GMT

Saving Big-Eared Bats Trickier Than Thought

Scientists involved in the desperate attempt to protect the endangered Virginia big-eared bats from extinction recently admitted that they have their work cut out for them. These animals are under threat from a very potent fungal infection, which at this point has no viable cure. Researchers say that it acts by awake...

12 March 2010
08:51 GMT

Planet-Wide Disaster Saw the Rise of Fungi

Some 251.4 million years ago, a cataclysm destroyed most living things on our planet, including microorganisms, plants, and higher animals. Informally known as The Great Dying, the Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) extinction event was the most severe battering the Earth had ever faced during its five cataclysmic e...

2 October 2009
06:57 GMT

Fungus Learns to Control Ants Through 'Zombification'

Naturalists and biologists were amazed at the discovery of one of the most dangerous, invasive and subversive species of fungus ever known to man, which displays a remarkable activity of ensuring its survival. It can take control of carpenter ants' brains, and turns them into zombies, which are then manipulating...

12 August 2009
10:43 GMT

Microbes as Biofuel Sources

A microbe that thrives inside the trunk of a tree could prove to be the future source of biofuels. It was discovered by mistake in an undisclosed location in the northern Patagonian woods. The team of researchers who came upon it and who tapped the potential of their finding have dubbed the resulting hydrocarbon com...

7 November 2008
02:43 GMT

Plant Waste Can Be Turned Directly Into Fuel

Researchers wandering around Patagonia made a huge discovery recently, when they learned that a specific type of fungus can actually produce diesel naturally. The process is the adaptation of the organism to the environment, evolved so that it could kill off other fungi that may try to grow on the ulmo tree (Eucryphi...

4 November 2008
09:43 GMT

Seed Speed at a Record High

A recent discovery showed that fungal species registered speeds of 88 km/h (55 miles per hour), exhibiting accelerations 180.000 times Earth's gravity as they project their spores outwards. The common pathogens of the crops are mostly harmless to humans, but some can still increase the negative effects of a...

18 September 2008
09:30 GMT

Alligator Blood Could Treat HIV

We rather associate alligators and crocodiles with death, but these creatures could one day save your life, as a research team signaled at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Blood proteins of the alligators could deliver new powerful antibiotics against infections accompanying diabetic ulcer...

8 April 2008
02:47 GMT

Why Pigeons Are Not Good

It may seem silly: do pigeons represent a dangerous nuisance? The answer is: yes. Their dejections ruin monuments and statues. But it is more than that: they carry extremely virulent germs. Since Medieval Ages, the pigeons started to inhabit the European cities, where they easily found food in wastes discarded by hum...

4 April 2008
09:25 GMT

About Poisonous Mushrooms

Without counting with the microscopic fungi, there are 3,800 species of mushrooms in Europe alone. 250 species are toxic but very few can kill: about 12 species. The same mushroom species can have various effects, depending on its age, consumed amount and the health state of the consumer.In France, three mushrooms ar...

2 April 2008
16:46 GMT

How Ants Evolved Agricultural Systems

One of the most interesting shows offered by nature in tropical South America is represented by the leaf-cutter ants (Atta). A sole colony can leave a tree leafless in just one night. But these ants are real farmers, which do not eat the leaves, but use them for making compost for cultivating fungi in their undergrou...

25 March 2008
05:57 GMT

A History of the Sex Chromosomes

It seems simple: XX sex chromosomes make a female, XY sex chromosomes make a male. But sex is an evolutionary achievement which did not appear just like that. A new research published in the journal "PLoS" points to the great similarities between the DNA sequences that determine the sex of plants and animals and the ...

18 March 2008
14:06 GMT

This Mother Grows Her Kids Inside Her Stomach!

There's nothing impressive in this Australian frog: dull coloration and just up to 5.5 cm (2.2 in) in length. But the Rheobatrachus frogs, first described in 1973, are nothing ordinary. Their name of gastric-brooding frogs speaks about an amazing breeding behavior in this species. While keeping them in an aquari...

2 February 2008
04:59 GMT

Molecular Fossil Sex

Humans come as boys or girls, but some organisms do not and without being hermaphrodites, they still have sex. In fact, one of the most primitive types of sexual differentiation has just been described by a team from Duke University Medical Center lead by Dr. Joseph Heitman in the journal Nature. The ancestral sex-d...

18 January 2008
05:27 GMT

Four Facts About Fungi

1. In Eastern Europe and Italy, mushroom harvesting is a tradition, and the annual number of intoxication cases and deaths is high. Dishes based on wild mushrooms are something common, but there are about 250 species of toxic mushrooms growing in Europe. The most dangerous are death cap (Amanita phalloides) and destr...

3 December 2007
14:16 GMT

Fungus + Scorpion Venom = Powerful Non-Contaminant Insect Killer

We are damping in the environment tonnes of poison (read pesticides) that finally accumulate in the water, soil and air, envenoming us directly through food, drunk water and breathed air, not to mention that all the species suffer. The ecological agriculture tries to eliminate these poisons and one way to keep off pe...

14 November 2007
03:43 GMT

Top 10 Infectious Diseases That Have Killed Millions of People

The discovery of the antibiotics by the middle of the 20th century seemed to have doomed the human pathogens. They proved effective against many bacteria and fungi causing hospital infections, like meningitis, pneumonia and scarlet fever, which before were deadly. But antibiotics cannot attack viruses, like HIV or fl...

13 November 2007
14:06 GMT

Your Dandruff Has Sex!

Do you look like a Christmas tree under the strobe light of the club? Covered by "globes" of dandruff? That's because of a fungus that impedes your search for a mate. All this while having sex on your head perhaps even at this moment. A research team at Procter & Gamble Beauty, a subsidiary of the company produc...

8 November 2007
02:40 GMT

A Cure Against the Frog Terminator Has Been Found!

This is the frog terminator: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a fungus decimating complete populations of frogs and other amphibian species worldwide. The fungus kills off the frogs by clogging their skin and essentially asphyxiating them. By now it spread from Central America to Australia, Japan, Europe and the US. R...

30 October 2007
05:38 GMT

The Secret Weapon of the Killer Fungus: Sex

This is the frog terminator: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a fungus that is wiping out frogs and other amphibian species all over the world. Now researchers have found a secret weapon that enables the fungus to travel further and withstand harsh conditions longer, turning it more dangerous: sex. The fungus seems to...

7 August 2007
04:53 GMT

How to Fertilize Yourself

Having sex with yourself is one thing, but some species manage to sexually reproduce in this manner, without the need for a partner. Now a team at the University of Nottingham investigated this amazing ability on a key fungus species, Aspergillus nidulans. This fungus has evolved in such a way that the same individua...

6 August 2007
03:42 GMT

Do Animals Use Antibiotics?

We pride ourselves with our scientific discoveries, but we do nothing more than rediscover what nature already knew and used for ages. For example, humans employ antibiotics for less than a century, but ants have always chemically disinfected their nests, using coniferous resin, as found by a team at the University o...

22 June 2007
03:33 GMT

Bacteria Found to Fight the Killer Fungus

Global warming hits hard on the amphibian species: a previously unknown fungal infection is decimating populations across the globe, with an extreme virulence in tropical America and Australia. Now a research points out that bacteria occurring naturally on the skin of some salamanders can slow down the deadly fungal ...

30 May 2007
09:16 GMT

Mushrooms

Fungi can be found everywhere in some organic chemicals, from water to pastures and even in sand dunes. But for those forming mushrooms their favorite environment remains the soil of the forests, where the biggest diversity in species, sizes, shapes and colors is to be found. Some species are poisonous, others are co...

18 May 2007
15:14 GMT

Ancient Mushrooms Were as Big as Trees

How big can a mushroom be? A few tens of pounds and with a 2-3 ft diameter? That's small, compared to the largest one that ever existed: as big as a tree! A team at the University of Chicago and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., has come with conclusive evidence that one of the weirdes...

23 April 2007
04:16 GMT


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