Small Things Considered

It Comes With The Terroir

by Roberto | There is something very special about wine, at least for my taste. I do, however, admit to the possibility that many of our readers will wonder what's the big deal about the beverage, it's just fermented grape juice after all. Read more →

Talmudic Question #160

Why are obligate endosymbionts of insects (for example, Buchnera ) more often mutualistic but those of vertebrates (for example, Rickettsia ) more often parasitic? Read more →

Symbiosis

by Elio et al. | For as long as I can re­mem­ber, I have been fas­ci­na­ted by the sub­ject of sym­bio­sis. This is one of the grand themes in bio­lo­gy, what Mar­ga­ret McFall-Ngai has apt­ly called 'the ele­phant in the room', de­serv­ing much love and at­tent­ion. But ex­act­ly, what is it that is so fas­ci­na­ting about it? Read more →

"May I ask you a question?"

by Elio | My first lecture (in 1958, long ago) was to medical students and the subject was DNA. I felt privileged to be given the task to talk about this subject, which was born in its modern incarnation not many years earlier. Read more →

Replay : A Close Encounter of the Enological Kind

by John Ingraham | Early in my career, by good fortune, I encountered the malolactic fermentation. Investigating it by standard microbiologi­cal methods led to results that changed the way California red wines are made, for the better most agree. How satisfying it is to think that I was following in the footsteps of Pasteur, no less, and his early career... Read more →

Small (and Large) Numbers Considered

by Roberto | It can be both fun and instructive to play with numbers that give us some sense of the microbial world. Consider, if you will, some of the following examples… Read more →

Rounding up the Honey Bees (2)

by Christoph | Glyphosate is a competitive in­hi­bi­tor of the shi­ki­ma­te path­way that mi­cro­bes and plants use for the syn­the­sis of three aro­ma­tic ami­no acids (Trp,Phe,Tyr) and their de­ri­va­ti­ves. In E. co­li, for­ma­tion of EPSP from S3P and PEP is ca­ta­lyzed by the AroA en­zyme (EPSPS=EPSP syn­tha­se). Gly­pho­sa­te com­petes with PEP for bind­ing to EPSP syn­tha­se in a con­cen­tra­tion-de­pen­dent... Read more →

Talmudic Question #159

 
Where on Earth would you expect to find the most varied micro­biome (in terms of different taxa per gram) ? Read more →

Rounding up the Honey Bees (1)

by Christoph | Why would I deviate here from STC's habit to rather not  feature the new­est re­sults of tren­dy re­search to­pics? The rea­son comes hid­den in a short no­tice in Science  by War­ren Corn­wall: "...The new re­search is cer­tain to make a con­tro­ver­sial her­bi­ci­de even more of a flash­point." He re­fer­red, of course, to a re­cent pa­per pub­lish­ed in PNAS... Read more →

State of the World's Fungi

by Roberto | We want to bring to your attention an outstanding new report on fungi from the Kew Royal Botanic Garden. It makes for great reading and clearly points out the many roles that fungi play on the functioning of Earth's biosphere. Read more →