The biodiversity of the Earth never ceases to astonish. One example that has radically changed the face of biology is the discovery of a group of organisms called archaea (pronounced “ar-kee-ah”). It ...

Archaea, once thought to only survive in extreme environments, are now recognized as vital players in ecosystems from soil to sea. They drive key nutrient cycles, help plants grow, and even produce ...

Just call them archaea (ar-kee-uh) - archaebacteria are no more. Archaea were once considered to be quite similar to bacteria, but these prokaryotes are just weird enough to be classified in their own ...

Microbiology has always been about recognizing the scale of what is unknown. In the beginning, the unknown was that microbes existed at all. The invention of the microscope proved that these tiny, ...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is essential for genome evolution across the tree of life and has an important role in archaeal speciation, adaptation, and maintenance of diversity. Many of the ...

Most of the Earth's biosphere is cold, and psychrophilic microorganisms can be found in these permanently cold environments (≤5°C). Archaea are ubiquitous microorganisms that are present in most ...