probiotics

Could probiotics help protect at-risk wildlife?
A person in scuba gear holds a large syringe up to a brown coral under the ocean.

Researcher Raquel Peixoto applies a cocktail of beneficial bacteria to a coral reef under the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. Corals are just one of the potential beneficiaries of probiotics. (Morgan Bennett-Smith)

Anna Gibbs
New York University
It's still unknown how useful probiotics could be for at-risk wildlife. But worried microbiologists around the world are urgently testing out treatments on everything from corals to frogs with doses of beneficial bacteria.