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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Nov. 8

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Nov. 8.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s the long Saturday one, so you might need assistance. Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Uber alternative
Answer: CAB

4A clue: Red-headed character in the «Scooby-Doo» franchise
Answer: DAPHNE

7A clue: Not arrive on time
Answer: RUNLATE

8A clue: Label on a green U.S.D.A. sticker
Answer: ORGANIC

9A clue: Prestigious engineering school in Pasadena
Answer: CALTECH

10A clue: Prepares to be knighted
Answer: KNEELS

11A clue: Parts of a city grid: Abbr.
Answer: STS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Fashion brand with an interlocking «C» logo
Answer: CHANEL

2D clue: Silly behaviors
Answer: ANTICS

3D clue: Tree with smooth gray bark
Answer: BEECH

4D clue: Kevin ___, 15-time N.B.A. All-Star
Answer: DURANT

5D clue: They’re measured in degrees
Answer: ANGLES

6D clue: Division of the earth’s crust
Answer: PLATE

7D clue: Ice, in bartending lingo
Answer: ROCKS

Technologies

Spotify Brings Wrapped Energy Year-Round With Friend-Sharing Stats

The music service introduced new ways for music nerds to share their listening habits with friends.

It can be a long wait for Spotify Wrapped, the end-of-year promotion that allows Spotify users to view and share their listening habits. Now, users can keep an eye on those stats daily, plus share their listening habits with friends.

You can view your Spotify usage statistics every 24 hours and share your updates via social media services, such as Instagram Notes or Spotify Messages. The new share icon gives you access to eight different services where you can post your stats.

Every week, you’ll get updates on your top artists and songs from the past month, and Spotify will recommend new playlists. The app also gives you a «special highlight» based on a specific artist or song.

To access your personal musical data, click on your profile in the top left corner of the app and scroll down to «listening stats.»

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The new features are somewhat similar to Spotify Wrapped, the service’s annual end-of-year review of users’ listening habits, which is designed to be shared. Every year, Spotify adds extra details to Wrapped, such as assigning users a listening personality or a city that supposedly reflects their music tastes. It’s been the most popular way for Spotify users to view and share their music listening in the past. A number of third-party services do the same thing, including Volt.fm.

Read more: Best Music Streaming Services

Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service, offering 100 million tracks and serving more than 713 million users. In addition to its $12-per-month subscription service, Spotify also offers a free, ad-supported option.

Technologies

Wordle Gets Personal: You Can Now Make and Share Your Own Puzzles

If you’re a Wordle obsessive, you can now make your own inside joke puzzles to send to friends.

Wordle’s an immensely popular New York Times word game (we post the answers daily), but it’s not the most personal game in the world. Answers such as GUISE and PERIL are tricky, but generic. Now, Wordle fans who have ever dreamed of making their own puzzles can test their friends and family by creating their own Wordle creations up to seven letters in length.

No surprise, you have to be a New York Times Games or All Access Subscriber to use this feature. If you are, you’ll find the Create a Puzzle option available from the top menu above today’s Wordle. While you must be a subscriber to create your own personalized puzzle, you can share it with anyone — they only need the link, not a subscription, to complete your Wordle.

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Enter a word, and the site will tell you if it is available. Real Wordle limits you to five-letter words, but the puzzle-making feature lets you choose words between 4 and 7 letters.

The usual dictionary rules apply, and so curse words, some pet names, and obscure inside jokes are essentially out. If your cat is named TANGO, that’s there, but RINGO is not an option. You can drop a proposal with a single word like MARRY, but MARRYME will get rejected since that’s two separate words.

Word chosen, you can then fill out your name and add an optional hint, and the feature will generate your puzzle with a link you can send around. Unlike standard puzzles, your puzzle doesn’t appear to reset after a day, so whoever you send it to doesn’t need to rush to solve it.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.