San Antonio College Library

Whether they make you fat, fart, or freak out, microbes play a central role in your life. Right beneath your nose—on your face, in your gut, and everywhere in between—trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells. But these aren’t just nasty hitch-hikers. Many are crucial to your survival.

Designing Life. Man has been doing it for over 10,000 years. You may not be aware of it, but we are surrounded by “Superlife," life-forms manipulated by Man. Super Tuna: Cross-species Surrogacy, part of the Superlife Series, looks at interspecies cell implantation. Note- Superlife explores the science of how mankind is manipulating life for its benefit. The series does not attempt to address the concerns surrounding cloning, genetically modified...

A group of the Faculty of Sciences of Co´rdoba has discovered a bacterium in the Guadalquivir River which is able to eliminate waste cyanide and also produce a biodegradable plastic.

The single most important step to making a good wine is fermentation, which is what gives wine its particular taste and alcohol content. Winemakers add yeast--a single-celled fungus--to grape juice, and if all goes well the yeasts rapidly multiply, crowding out other microbes and allowing fermentation to complete in two to three weeks. But sometimes, the yeasts get stuck and don't fully ferment--a problem that has plagued the wine industry for centuries....