Small Things Considered

Let's make some more tyrosine, together! (part 1)

by Christoph | Surprisingly, it is not particu­lar­ly dif­fi­cult to per­suade the yeast S. ce­re­vi­si­ae to ac­cept E. co­li bac­te­ria as 'room­mates', that is, as sub­sti­tu­te for de­fec­ti­ve mi­to­chon­dria (see Elio's recent blog). As 'hous­ing me­di­a­tor' you have to pro­vide the pro­spec­ti­ve room­mate with a de­fense against the host's SNARE sys­tem, 'dis­able' both part­ners by en­gin­eering... Read more →

How is Light Made? – A Snippet

by Elio | Ever since as children we saw fireflies emitting light at night, we ranked luminescence high in excitement of natural phenomena. We learned later that other kinds of living things, such as bacteria, protists, fungi, insects, and many others, are also capable of emitting light. Read more →

Sensing Quorum Backwards

by Elio | Obvious in the establishment and progress in bacterial patho­genesis is that the inoculum, the number of bacteria entering their host at one time, must be of an effective size. Depending on the infectivity of the species, this can vary from a single bacterium to millions of them. Read more →

Phage Therapy – an Update

by Elio | Has there ever been a more perplexing topic in microbiology than phage therapy? Well, that of probiotics comes close. Both have an over 100-year history, both have proponents as well as detractors, both have seen major investments in research and commercialization. Read more →

Go Ahead, Prove that Eukaryotic Cells AroseVia Endosymbiosis

by Elio | Say you want to prove once and for all the endosymbiotic theory of the origin of eukaryotic cells, substantiating that a cell (according to many, an archaeon) acquired a bacterium that eventually morphed into a mitochondrion. Read more →

Winter Vacation and the New STC Logo

by Team STC | We take advantage of this being the season for rejoicing, whoo-hoo!, and take our annual winter two week vacation. When we return in 2019, we will enter the 13th year of Small Things Considered. And we do so for the first time with our own logo! Read more →

Retrospective, December 2018

by Elio
For your convenience, we present a lightly annotated list that includes most of the posts of the past half year, with suitably links. Note in passing that we are observing the twelfth year of this blog's existence. Read more →

The Charms of Cold

by Elio | The upcoming "protein spotlight" #209 by Vi­vi­en­ne Bail­lie Ger­rit­sen on ice-bind­ing pro­teins brings up the near ma­gic things that hap­pen to mi­cro­bes in the cold. At a time when our worry is glo­bal warm­ing, it may be good to con­si­der that some bac­te­ria do not shun cold ha­bi­tat and thrive in such un­in­ha­bi­table-sound­ing pla­ces as the... Read more →

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 →