Technologies

Sharpest images of living bacteria reveal unexpected membrane structure

The images are so clear that scientists can see proteins on a bacterium’s outer membrane.

Using a microscopy technique that pulls back the curtain on the nanoscale world, researchers have generated the sharpest images of live bacteria ever taken. The high-resolution snaps reveal a patchwork of proteins that make up the outer membrane and, potentially, give scientists a new way to attack the organisms.

In a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the US and UK provide images of the rod-shaped bacterium Escherichia Coli, which is commonly found in our gastrointestinal tracts and helps digest food. It’s a mostly harmless citizen of our guts, but certain E. Coli strains can cause severe illness. In recent years, scientists have shown that these strains are becoming more resistant to antibiotics.

The bacteria are, of course, incredibly tiny. About 150 to 300 individual bacteria could probably fit head-to-toe across the period at the end of this sentence. While regular microscopes can see the bacteria as clumps of rods scattered all across a glass slide, they don’t give us a good idea of the structure of a bacterium’s body and the outer membrane that protects it from our drugs.

«The outer membrane is a formidable barrier against antibiotics and is an important factor in making infectious bacteria resistant to medical treatment,» Bart Hoogenboom, a nanotechnologist at University College London and co-author on the paper, said in a press release. Hoogenboom and his team wanted to take a much closer look and turned to «atomic force microscopy» to study the membrane in greater detail.

Atomic Force Microscopy, or AFM, is a powerful technique to study objects that are just nanometers in length. (A nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter.) Hooked up to a computer, the device can study the surface of tiny, tiny objects by running a fine-tipped probe, just a few nanometers wide, across the surface. The probe moves along the object — whether it’s a microbe, a piece of bone or another nanomaterial — and can sense the undulations present. You can imagine it kind of like a turntable stylus, moving along the grooves of a vinyl record. Totally different process but similar concept.

When the team ran the AFM probe over the surface of a living E. Coli bacterium, they discovered it was a mosaic of proteins. Most areas of the outer membrane were covered in mostly immobile proteins, but there were also islands that lacked any protein at all and were instead full of sugary lipid molecules.

«This suggests that the barrier may not be equally hard to breach or stretch all over the bacterium, but may have stronger and weaker spots that can also be targeted by antibiotics,» Hoogenboom said.

Outer membranes are present on what’s known as «gram-negative» bacteria, like E coli, and not gram-positive bacteria, like Staphylococcus. The «gram» doesn’t refer to weight, but a specific test designed to quickly differentiate bacteria based on their cell walls. Notably, gram-negative bacteria have a more impenetrable cell wall, which makes it hard for antibiotics to get in and work to destroy the microbes.

Antibiotic resistance makes infectious diseases harder to treat and can turn common infections into life-threatening scourges. Many antibiotic resistant infections are picked up in hospitals, and the World Health Organization has consistently listed antibiotic resistance as a global health threat over the past few years because it has the potential to upend health care systems.

How the protein patchwork of the outer membrane might affect the strength of a bacteria’s protective covering or how it could help combat antibiotic resistance is not yet known. But with advanced microscopy techniques, scientists can shine a light on a previously unseen realm.

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal

Technologies

Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway,” according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.
The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
WATCH: Waymo launches new autonomous system in Chinese-made vehicle

Technologies

Qualcomm tumbles 13% as semiconductor stocks retreat from historic AI-fueled surge

Semiconductor equities reversed sharply after a broad AI-driven advance, with Qualcomm suffering its worst day since 2020 amid inflation concerns and rising oil prices.

Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

Market participants are wagering that the shift from AI model training to autonomous agents will lift demand for additional AI hardware. Among the beneficiaries are memory chip producers, which are raising prices as supply remains tight.

Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.