Microorganism
hideA microorganism (from the Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and ὀργανισμός, organismós, "organism"; also spelled micro organism or micro-organism) or microbe is an organism that is microscopic (usually too small to be seen by the naked human eye). The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design.
Microorganisms are very diverse; they include bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists; microscopic plants (called green algae); and animals such as plankton, the planarian and the amoeba. Some microbiologists also include viruses, but others consider these as non-living. Most microorganisms are unicellular (single-celled), but this is not universal, since some multicellular organisms are microscopic, while some unicellular protists and bacteria, like Thiomargarita namibiensis, are macroscopic and visible to the naked eye.
Microorganisms live in all parts of the biosphere where there is liquid water, including soil, hot springs, on the ocean floor, high in the atmosphere and deep inside rocks within the Earth's crust. Microorganisms are critical to nutrient recycling in ecosystems as they act as decomposers. As some microorganisms can fix nitrogen, they are a vital part of the nitrogen cycle, and recent studies indicate that airborne microbes may play a role in precipitation and weather.
Microbes are also exploited by people in biotechnology, both in traditional food and beverage preparation, and in modern technologies based on genetic engineering. However, pathogenic microbes are harmful, since they invade and grow within other organisms, causing diseases that kill millions of people, other animals, and plants.
For more information about Microorganism, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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News tagged with microbes
Climate Change, Nitrogen Loss Threaten Plant Life in Arid Desert Soils
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In the Mojave Desert winds howl across this hottest place in North America, blowing sands across Death Valley and through empty ghost towns, swirling across treeless land for hundreds of miles. ...
Study reveals how plants and bacteria 'talk' to thwart disease
Nov 05, 2009 |
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When it comes to plants' innate immunity, like many of the dances of life, it takes two to tango. A receptor molecule in the plant pairs up with a specific molecule on the invading bacteria and, presto, the immune system ...
Iron controls patterns of nitrogen fixation in the Atlantic
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 02, 2009 |
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Scientists including researchers from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the University of Essex have discovered that interactions between iron supply, transported through the atmosphere from ...
Pumpkin skin may scare away germs
Oct 28, 2009 |
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The skin of that pumpkin you carve into a Jack-o'-Lantern to scare away ghosts and goblins on Halloween contains a substance that could put a scare into microbes that cause millions of cases of yeast infections ...
Model microbial community for studying expanding dead zones characterized
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 22, 2009 |
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Among the many changes in the ocean is the expansion of oxygen-deficient or oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), also known as dead zones, which affect the processes by which carbon is captured and sequestered on ...
New artificial enzyme safer for nature
Oct 22, 2009 |
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Perilous and polluting industrial processes can be made safer with enzymes. But only a short range of enzymes have been available for the chemical industry.
Water Bears to Travel to Martian Moon, Test Theory of Transpermia
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Oct 13, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny microscopic creatures commonly known as water bears (also called Tardigrades), along with a few other life forms, will be sent to the Martian moon Phobos to test whether organisms can ...
New age of discovery for new proteins dawns
Oct 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- We are on the brink of another new age of discovery- this time of countless new proteins, which could be used in a whole range of situations from medicine to industry, following the successful ...
Genome sequence published for important biofuels yeast
Oct 06, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A strain of yeast that thrives on turning sugar cane into ethanol for biofuel has had its genome completely sequenced by researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Searching for Alien Life, on Earth
Oct 05, 2009 |
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If you spend an afternoon walking along the muddy shore of Mono Lake, with the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada mountains looming majestically in the background, you’ll no doubt discover, as others have ...
Team finds a better way to watch bacteria swim
Oct 04, 2009 |
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Researchers have developed a new method for studying bacterial swimming, one that allows them to trap Escherichia coli bacteria and modify the microbes' environment without hindering the way they move.
Iowa State University researcher uncovers potential key to curing tuberculosis
Oct 01, 2009 |
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Researchers at Iowa State University have identified an enzyme that helps make tuberculosis resistant to a human's natural defense system. Researchers have also found a method to possibly neutralize that enzyme, ...
Laser technique has implications for detecting microbial life forms in Martian ice
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Oct 01, 2009 |
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An innovative technique called L.I.F.E. imaging used successfully to detect bacteria in frozen Antarctic lakes could have exciting implications for demonstrating signs of life in the polar regions of Mars, according to an ...
Planet's nitrogen cycle overturned by 'tiny ammonia eater of the seas'
Sep 30, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- It's not every day you find clues to the planet's inner workings in aquarium scum. But that's what happened a few years ago when University of Washington researchers cultured a tiny organism from the bottom ...
Mystery Solved: Marine Microbe Is Source of Rare Nutrient
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 29, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of microscopic marine microbes, called phytoplankton, by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of South Carolina has solved a ten-year-old ...
