In 2015, researchers examining deep-sea sediments near the underwater volcano Loki discovered gene fragments indicating a new and previously undiscovered form of microbes.

In the late 1970’s, our understanding of the tree of life was fundamentally changed with the discovery and recognition of Archaea, a third domain of life along with Bacteria and Eukarya. While ...

The other two domains are bacteria and eucaryotes, which include mammals and humans. Archaea is possibly the most ancient domain of the three. "You can think of archaea as molecular fossils," Bell ...

The new study reports that archaea, bacteria-like cells believed to have originated more than 3 billion years ago, can contain a protein (Fusexin 1 or Fsx1) that resembles a type of fusogen (HAP2 ...

This makes the last common ancestor of known archaea younger than the one of all bacteria, which lived between 4.05 and 4.49 billion years back (Figure 1).

The researchers said that the group’s latest paper provides new insights into the processes and drivers of bacterial evolution. “We know that microbial life has evolved in naturally occurring ...

Bacteria end up with a long string of gene cassettes, strung together by AttC sites, in their genomes. On the bacterial genome, integrons consist of a gene for an IntI protein, Int, followed by a ...

The Francis Crick Institute. "Ancient DNA used to map evolution of fever-causing bacteria." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 May 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2025 / 05 / 250522162551.htm>.

Still, current data suggests gut archaea are not as varied as their bacterial neighbors. “We made a census of the diversity of methanogens in the gut, and we found around 30 species, which is not a ...

PROTEUS, a system designed to harness “directed evolution,” can speed the process up by years, or even decades.

This research, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, investigated the group of bacteria known as the Firmicutes, which are dominant in the human microbiome and produce spores. The researchers analysed ...

In the late 1970’s, our understanding of the tree of life was fundamentally changed with the discovery and recognition of Archaea, a third domain of life along with Bacteria and Eukarya. While ...