Kenneth H. Nealson

TL;DR: Recent technological and intellectual advances that have changed thinking about five questions about how have bacteria facilitated the origin and evolution of animals; how do animals and bacteria affect each other’s genomes; how does normal animal development depend on bacterial partners; and how is homeostasis maintained between animals and their symbionts are highlighted.

TL;DR: A metagenomic study of the marine planktonic microbiota in which surface (mostly marine) water samples were analyzed as part of the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling expedition, which yielded an extensive dataset consisting of 7.7 million sequencing reads.

TL;DR: Nanowires produced by the oxygenic phototrophic cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC6803 and the thermophilic, fermentative bacterium Pelotomaculum thermopropionicum reveal that electrically conductive appendages are not exclusive to dissimilatory metal-reducing bacteria and may, in fact, represent a common bacterial strategy for efficient electron transfer and energy distribution.

TL;DR: The characteristics of this reduction are consistent with a biological, and not an indirect chemical, reduction of manganese, which suggest that this bacterium uses manganic oxide as a terminal electron acceptor.