From New Scientist, a list of how life could have started. I haven’t seen a detailed list like this on abiogeneses. Most of the research looks at replication or metabolism. This ties both together for the first time.
Also a longer article
From Science daily, a new strain of Geobactor, the darling of electricity producers, has been discovered. Using selective pressure, a team from University of Massachusetts Amherst has evolved a strain that forms a thinner biofilm.
From Nat Geo, if you didn’t hate him before…to be fair he did rescind a couple of rules and added marine sanctuaries. Still the rest are typical of his environmental record.
From Physorg.com, a study of river systems from across the US looks as how these systems filter nitrogen. How it’s done is by denitrogenzing bacteria taking nitrates from the water and creating nitrogen gas. And the amount of nitrates in the water is related to the amount made into gas. This relates to algal blooms that is harmful to humans and create dead zones in the ocean.
International Rivers, a NGO, is having action for rivers, today and tomorrow.
From Physorg.com, so the American Academy of Microbiology has a report outlining the need for increased research into what microbes are out there. Since we only know an infinitesimal number of microbes and know a even smaller amount very well(having mapped their genomes or have been using them in the lab), this seems like a no brainer. NASA is looking for microbes in the lakes of the Antarctic.