We can now measure changes in the thousands of different and invisible microbes that contribute to healthy reef communities.

In 2012, Nature revealed that humans provide a home to thousands of different species of microbes, in a series of papers that opened a path to understanding the impact of the human microbiome on our health.

Today, a paper in Nature documents over 800,000 microbial genomes, identifying over 500 new bacterial species and over 300,000 distinct viruses in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

This invisible community was documented using DNA found in samples of seawater from 48 reefs, by a research team led by The University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).

The authors believe this is the first time that the microbiome of the open waters of reef systems on the Great Barrier Reef has been comprehensively surveyed. They have created the Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database which is available to all reef researchers.

“Now, we can start to explore what makes a healthy reef microbiome, and how these invisible communities respond to changes on the Great Barrier Reef such as bleaching, storms, sediment, fishing and other stresses,” Professor Philip Hugenholtz, a microbiologist at the University of Queensland and a senior author on the paper said.

Researchers from James Cook University, University of Melbourne and University of Tasmania also contributed to the study.

A team of Vermont scientists were stunned to discover melanoma that moves from catfish to catfish like a parasite in US and Canadian lakes. It's the first-ever transmissible cancer found in a freshwater animal and only the fourth ever seen in nature.

Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a device that can detect the acetone content in exhaled breath nearly as accurately as a mass spectrometer. Acetone is produced when the body burns fat. Thanks to a smartphone app that guides test subjects in real time, the hand-held device can also be used reliably by non-experts. In future, this should allow diets and therapies for metabolic disorders to be more closely monitored and personalised. 

A review paper by scientists from Beijing Institute of Technology reviewed the theoretical foundations, key technologies, innovative applications, and future challenges of autonomous robots in precise drug delivery, a field with revolutionary potential.

The new research paper, published on Jun. 29 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, provided a hierarchical, function‑oriented framework that directly links microrobot design to the progressive physiological barriers encountered in vivo, from accessible body cavities to the most challenging immune‑privileged sites.