Small Things Considered

Small RNAs Considered

by Janie | With the discovery of the trp attenuator in the 1970s, followed shortly by the ColE1 plasmid RNA I, RNA became a much more interesting personality. The biomolecule wears far more hats than mRNA, rRNA, and tRNA. In all its multitudes, RNA seems to boast an infinite functional repertoire... Read more →

Cathy Squires (1941−2021)

by Roberto | Microbiologists around the world lost a won­der­ful col­lea­gue when Cathy Squires died this past Au­gust. For Elio and for my­self, this was also the loss of a friend. For many de­ca­des, our lives were con­nec­ted in spe­cial and some­times un­ex­pec­ted ways. A na­tive Californian, Cathy ob­tain­ed her BA and MS in Bac­te­rio­lo­gy at UC Davis, where... Read more →

A Dual-Function Small RNA

by Christoph | We cele­brate the 60th an­ni­ver­sa­ry of the Lac oper­on this year and what bou­quet − et bien sûr un coup de cham­pagne − would be more ap­pro­pri­ate than to take a look at how post-tran­script­ion­al gene re­gu­la­tion com­ple­ments and ex­tends clas­si­cal tran­script­ion­al gene re­gu­la­tion? I'm talk­ing of small RNAs (sRNAs) and their role... Read more →

The Hunger Games

by Elio |I am not usually drawn to start out an ar­ticle by con­si­der­ing a bac­te­ri­um's name, but when con­front­ed with Ag­gre­ga­ti­bac­ter ac­ti­no­my­ce­tem­co­mit­ans, I had to take a pause. A well-tra­vel­ed Gram-negative coc­co­ba­cil­lus, this car­rier of such a con­vo­lut­ed mo­ni­ker start­ed life simp­ly as an Ac­ti­no­ba­cil­lus... Read more →

Kimchi-Making and Microbiology

by Janie | Kimchi-making is a matter of tossing cabbage leaves and spices into special containers, followed by a trust exercise with lactic acid bacteria like Lactobacillus and Leuconostoc. But when it comes to preparing South Korea's national dish, there are myriad modi operandi and many subtleties even within those... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Diazotroph

by Roberto | It all started with my want­ing to write a post on Fran­kia. I did what I al­ways do when think­ing of a new post. I googled 'small things considered frankia'. Nothing. Good start, I can dive in­to the topic. Next, I thought let's put Frankia in the con­text of prior posts. I googled 'small things considered rhizobium'. Nothing again... Read more →

Why Calcify?

by Roberto | Janie's re­cent Bio-Brick post, where she in­tro­duces mi­cro­bi­al­ly in­duced cal­cite pre­ci­pi­ta­tion, prompt­ed me to con­tinue on the to­pic. In con­trast to the amor­phous chalk Janie de­scribed, which is pro­duced by bac­te­ria from lime­stone, I'll be de­scrib­ing a ve­ry dif­ferent sort of chalk. Still cal­cium car­bo­nate, but with a com­ple­te­ly dif­fer­ent ge­ne­sis. Read more →

Talmudic Question #190

Which cause more severe diseases in humans, RNA or DNA viruses? Read more →

Transient Thoughts on Transduction

by Roberto | What with the all the talk about CRISPR, the renewed interest in phage therapy, the widespread occurrence of huge phages (to mention but a few of the reasons phage are constantly in the news these days), it's no exaggeration to say that once again in biology "phage are all the rage"... Read more →

Fine Reading: Evolution of Pathogen Tolerance

by Roberto | While reading a review yesterday, I recalled a conversation I had with a student nearly forty years ago. He did not appear interested in the subject of my lectures – bacterial genetics and physiology – so I was curious to know the reasons why. Read more →