From science centric, oak and beech seem to encourage root microbes to facilitate mineral weathering. Root microbes break down minerals to create usable nutrients, like iron, to the trees.

From the Times of India, Capsaicin changes beneficial proteins to help fight fat. It’s action is still to be elucidated, though.

From Physorg.com, marsupials, bats, rodents and tenrecs harbor the genes for Filoviruses, such as Ebola and Marburg virus. This shows the power of examining genomes to discover not only shared ancestry but common infection and incorporation of virus into genomes.

Abstract

From Physorg.com, Mycobacterium vaccae(a soil bacteria) was fed to mice and the mice were tested in maze runs to see if it increased learning ability. The increase in learning was only temporary, however. Read the rest of this entry »

From BBC News: The marine bacteria found on sushi transferred its genetic material to the microfauna of humans who consume sushi.

From Science Daily, iron (III) hexacyanoferrate (II) or Prussian blue salt when added to ammonia makes hydrogen cyanide. Which is an important building block when it comes to creating life. Leading to stuff like urea, lactic acid and dimethylhydantoin. Interesting bit about it concentrating carbon and creating hematite.

Post 100!

From Physorg.com, findings from the red planet shows that the amount of methane (CH4) in the Martian atmosphere is not caused by meteorites. So now the thinking is that it is caused by the reaction of rock with water and CO2 or it is biological.
Given the amount of CO2 in Mars’ atmosphere, I’m leaning toward the geologic origin. But one can dream of Martian Microbes.

From Physorg, several species of cyanobacteria create rope-like structures that “allows them to colonize physically unstable sedimentary environments, and to act as successful pioneers in the biostabilization process.”(From the abstract) These ropes wrap around grains of sand to prevent the sand grains from shifting.

Abstract

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, German scientists have discovered that using salts (NaCl, CaCl2, MgCl2 and KCl) amino acids will form pyrroles. Pyrroles are important for photosynthesis.