In the multicellular soil bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor, some cells start producing lots of antibiotics after mutations delete big chunks of their genomes. Now a computer model has helped to ...

In certain trees, soils can form along branches and can support varied plant and animal life. However, what conditions these ‘canopy soils’ form in, and what kind of biodiversity they support, has ...

Marriage of the mineral world and the organic world: Introduction: How soil forms from rocks and weather -- Plant roots and their bacterial partners -- Plant roots and their fungal partners -- Where ...

Soils produce more than 95% of the food we eat. We depend upon them for our food and the clothes on our back but they are so much more than natural factories. For one thing, they act as an important ...

We know that soil feeds plants, but do we know how it got there in the first place? Soil forms via the interaction of five factors: parent material, climate, living beings, a land’s topography, and a ...