Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. Photograph showing the cracks in Saturn s moon, Enceladus, ...

Bacterial spores can survive for years, even centuries, without nutrients, resisting heat, UV radiation, and antibiotics. How inert, sleeping bacteria -- or spores -- spring back to life has been a ...

A remarkable quality of bioengineering is the fact that scientists can take biological processes honed by millions of years of evolution and use them ...

"Remove the Kapton tape and activate the battery." "But captain, these batteries must be 100 years old!" "They'll work, trust me." That may sound like a scene from a Star Trek rerun, but it could ...

(Nanowerk News) Bacterial spores are one of nature’s most resilient organisms. These tiny, seed-like structures form when bacteria enter a dormant state to survive unfavorable conditions. They can ...

When the going gets tough for certain bacteria, they form into spores that can withstand the harshest of environments. Scientists have now utilized that fact to produce "living plastic" that ...

A new type of bioplastic could help reduce the plastic industry's environmental footprint. Researchers led by the University of California San Diego have developed a biodegradable form of ...

Getting microbes to eat plastic is a frequently touted solution to our growing waste problem, but making the approach practical is tricky. A new technique that impregnates plastic with the spores of ...

Bacterial spores – the hardy survival structures formed by certain bacterial species – are proving to be a game changer in the field of engineered living materials (ELMs). These autonomously grown ...

Researchers at Umeå University have recently developed a highly sensitive method for detecting bacterial spores—tough microorganisms that survive extreme conditions and can cause both food poisoning ...

Researchers led by a team at the University of California San Diego have developed a biodegradable form of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) that could help reduce the plastic industry’s environmental ...