Small Things Considered

A Game of Dice

by Christoph
When on the 3rd day of crea­tion − or the 5th, the Old Tes­ta­ment isn't quite clear here − the Bac­ter­ia and Ar­chaea were sum­mon­ed to choose their shapes, there was at once a fran­tic run on rods and coc­ci; spi­ril­lae were also im­me­dia­te­ly sold out. The Al­pha­pro­teo­bac­te­ria fro­licked and... Read more →

Of Terms for Biologists: Wanderjahre

by Roberto
Hope you noticed the not-so-subtle twist from our usual "Of Terms in Bio­lo­gy" to "Of Terms for Bio­lo­gists." In­deed, Wan­der­jah­re is cer­tain­ly not a term in bio­lo­gy. It is, how­ever, a term I hope many bio­lo­gists-in-train­ing will em­brace and put into prac­tice. I'll come forth and ad­mit it; for me, it is... Read more →

Staying in Science Past Retirement

by Elio, Linc Sonenshein, and Roberto
As their years in the pro­fes­sion pass, prac­tic­ing sci­en­tists might pon­der on a quest­ion re­gard­ing their fu­ture. When I re­tire, how can I re­main in science? In the Uni­ted Sta­tes man­da­to­ry re­ti­re­ment was abol­ish­ed in 1986. In ma­ny oth­er count­ries, man­da­to­ry re­ti­re­ment still pre­vails. Re­gard­less of wheth­er man­dat­ed or vo­lun­ta­ry, re­ti­re­ment is li­ke­ly to be... Read more →

Bench to Nature, A Call to Molecular Biologists

by Roberto
Along several decades my curio­si­ty drove me from the com­fort of pu­ri­fied en­zym­es to the com­plexi­ty of plant root mi­cro­bi­al com­mu­ni­ties, along the way pas­sing through sta­tio­na­ry phase phy­sio­lo­gy, bio­films, in­ter­spe­cies in­ter­ac­tions, to men­tion but a few. All along, some­where hid­den... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: The Polony Method

by Christoph
If there is one venerable la­bo­ra­to­ry tech­nique in vi­ro­lo­gy, it is the plaque assay for the de­tect­ion and quan­ti­fi­ca­tion of bac­te­rio­pha­ges. It was pio­neer­ed by Fe­lix d'He­rel­le al­ready around 1917, and in the ear­ly 1950s, plaque as­says were also es­tab­lish­ed for eu­kar­yot­ic vi­rus­es... Read more →

E. O. Wilson (1929−2021)

by Roberto
The world lost one of its premier de­fenders of bio­di­ver­si­ty and a pio­neer­ing eco­lo­gist and evo­lu­tio­na­ry bio­lo­gist when E. O. Wil­son died on De­cem­ber 26, 2021, at the age of 92. We start the year ho­nor­ing the me­mory... Read more →

Winter Vacation

by the STC team
We take advantage of this being the season for re­joic­ing, and embark on our customary two week winter va­ca­tion. We return in 2022, on January 6th... Read more →

Retrospective, July to December 2021

by Roberto
Continuing with tradition, here is the list of our posts from the last half year, lightly annotated. Read more →

Grant's Anatomy

by Christoph | At an EMBO workshop in Copen­ha­gen in 2006 on 'Cell cycle and cy­to­ske­le­tal ele­ments in bac­te­ria,' I was al­most un­able to stay put in my seat dur­ing one pre­sen­ta­tion: Grant Jen­sen showed the 3D-mon­tage of cryoET ima­ges of mag­ne­to­somes in Mag­ne­to­spi­ril­lum mag­ne­to­tac­ti­cum. It was a vi­su­al jour­ney in­to and through the in­ter­ior of a cell,... Read more →

First the Fire, Then the Fungus

by Roberto | Fire is a fun­da­men­tal eco­lo­gi­cal pro­cess. Through­out the his­tor­y of life on Earth, fire has been a re­gu­latory force that great­ly in­flu­en­ces eco­sys­tem func­tion and evo­lu­tion. Its ef­fects are not felt gra­du­al­ly but rather through pe­ri­od­ic, sud­den, and ca­tas­troph­ic ef­fects on po­pu­la­tion siz­es, com­mu­ni­ty com­po­si­tion, and nu­trient cyc­ling... Read more →