In the ocean, plastic waste collects to form large garbage patches that endanger marine life. This is partly because the synthetic plastic polymers used today can only be broken down biologically—that is, by microorganisms—at a very slow rate. Instead, the physical fragmentation of these materials leads to the formation of microplastics and nanoplastics. However, microorganisms do colonize plastic waste in the environment, forming biofilms and creating a unique microbial habitat that researchers refer to as the "plastisphere." Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.

Screening 13 conjugative plasmids each carrying a single essential transfer-gene deletion under an arabinose-inducible promoter identified trbC and trbF as stringently regulatable, giving up to a 5-log increase in conjugation efficiency on induction in both cis and trans, at the cost of reduced absolute efficiency and residual promoter leakiness. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

Tracing the roots of The Cell Within the Cell across 6 papers. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

A new study led by Francesca Storici, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and faculty member of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, has uncovered an unexpected feature of human DNA linked to gene activity and the physical organization of DNA. The findings, published in Cell, could change how scientists think about DNA organization, transcription and genome function. Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.

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