Researchers are racing to culture a menagerie of exotic organisms and finding lots of surprises along the way.

At the dawn of modern microbiology, Cohn observed abundant filamentous bacteria in drinking water wells that he named Crenothrix polyspora. Subsequent research has revealed the methanotrophic metaboli...

The climate crisis is one of the most imminent threats to humanity and all life on our planet. Methane is not only the second most potent greenhouse gas (GHG) and is responsible for approximately 31% of GHG-induced global warming since the start of the industrial revolution (1) but is also the most rapid increasing GHG in the atmosphere (2). The latter is likely caused by increased microbiological production of methane from, e.g., wetlands (2). This fact stresses the importance of methanotrophic microbes that can degrade methane with and without oxygen (3, 4) and thereby fulfill a crucial role in our global climate.

Methane is a significant contributor to climate change (27 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide), and the largest biological sink is methane-oxidizing bacteria: methanotrophs. Alt...

JAMSTEC Young Research Fellow (JYRF)

by Christoph — Having one or two 'Asgard' archaea under the microscope – after having cultivated them with great effort and even more patience – and looking them in the face is exciting, but a bit uns...

by Christoph — Based on their knowledge of the morphology of P. syntrophicum MK-D1 from electron micro­scopy and their knowledge of its physiology from growth assays and genome analysis, Imachi, Nobu...

Eukaryotes are theorized to have originated from an archaeal phylum Promethearchaeota (formerly 'Asgard' archaea)1,2. The first cultured representatives revealed valuable insight3,4 but are distantly ...

Eukaryotes are theorized to have originated from an archaeal phylum Promethearchaeota (formerly 'Asgard' archaea)1,2. The first cultured representatives revealed valuable insight3,4 but are distantly ...

In the domain Bacteria, one of the largest, most diverse and environmentally ubiquitous phylogenetic groups, Candidatus Patescibacteria (also known as candidate phyla radiation/CPR), remains poorly ch...

Multiple histories converge in Masaru Nobu’s story of culturing an archaeon closely related to us eukaryotes.