Topic description and stories

Tractor spraying pesticide onto food crop in a field

Pesticides and other common chemical pollutants are toxic to our ‘good’ gut bacteria

26 Nov 2025

A lab-based screening has discovered over 150 common industrial chemicals, from pesticides to flame retardants, that have a toxic effect on bacteria...

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Spatula to poison darts, Malaysia

Poisons, plants and Palaeolithic hunters

21 Mar 2015

Dozens of common plants are toxic. Archaeologists have long suspected that our Palaeolithic ancestors used plant poisons to make their hunting...

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The ‘suicide complex’ ToxIN.

Lethal weapon: bacteria’s high-risk suicide strategy

24 Dec 2012

New research shows how some bacterial cells keep a ‘suicide complex’ ready to hand at all times.

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