Small Things Considered

Chinese Surnames in Science

by Elio | Names matter a great deal in science, as, ob­vi­ous­ly, they do in all hu­man en­dea­vors. To a sci­en­tist, the name of the au­thor – or the au­thors – of a pub­li­ca­tion is par­ti­cu­lar­ly co­gent since a sci­en­ti­fic dis­co­ve­ry is fre­quent­ly asso­cia­ted with the name or na­mes of the dis­co­ver­er (no­tab­ly, Avo­ga­dro's number, Hal­ley's co­met, Wat­son and Crick DNA struc­ture, etcetera). I should note... Read more →

Extracellular Electron Transfer (EET) Goes Mainstream

by Kevin Blake | Of all the strange ways that bacteria can make a living, mineral respiration ranks among the strangest. Perhaps it’s my anthropomorphic worldview, but the idea of “breathing” solid rock (“No, they’re minerals!” Breaking Bad’s Hank Schrader would shout) seems completely absurd. Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Moonlighting

by Christoph
The Cambridge Dictionary defines "moon­light­ing" as: the act of work­ing at an ex­tra job, es­pe­ci­al­ly with­out tel­ling your main em­ploy­er. (Far) off the job mar­ket, "moon­light­ing pro­teins" are single po­ly­pep­ti­de chains that per­form mul­ti­ple bio­che­mi­cal or bio­phy­si­cal func­tions in ar­chae­al, bac­te­ri­al, and eu­kar­yo­tic cells. Read more →

Distributed virusing?

by Jamie | Viruses are very creative genetic entities. Their supersonic mutation rates (compared to ours) have allowed them to explore a wide range of possibilities in genome structure. Thus, while all cellular life has double-stranded DNA genomes, with options limited to circular or linear chromosomes, viruses are represented by just about every type of genome imaginable. Read more →

The Story of Free Use GFP (fuGFP)

by Nick Coleman and Mark Sommerville | It is per­haps iro­nic that for a sto­ry about open-source sci­ence, the tale of Free Use GFP (fuGFP) be­gins with a com­mer­cial col­la­bo­ra­tion. The Co­le­man lab was con­trac­ted by a small in­dus­try part­ner to de­ve­lop green fluo­res­cent bac­te­ria for qua­li­ty con­trol ap­pli­ca­tions. We plan­ned ini­tial­ly to use su­per­fol­der GFP (sfGFP) for this job, since ... Read more →

Risks and benefits of workouts while fasting (part 2)

by Christoph | You may wonder whether the 'oligo­tro­phic growth state' of Ba­cil­lus sub­ti­lis – the sub­ject of part 1 – isn't just the ca­pri­ole of a do­mes­ti­ca­ted bac­te­ri­um in the lab, and not of much re­le­vance "in the wild." But, as you will soon see, it pro­bab­ly is re­le­vant in na­tu­ral set­tings. But first I have to go back... Read more →

Talmudic Question #164

On Earth, L-amino acids in proteins go with D-ribo- or D-de­oxy­ri­bo-nuc­leo­tides. At which point in time during the evo­lu­tion of liv­ing sys­tems was the de­ci­sion made to make use of only one of the enan­tio­mer pairs? Read more →

Risks and benefits of workouts while fasting (part 1)

by Christoph | No intro today, I'm about to make one big leap right into the sub­ject. It's about Ba­cil­lus sub­ti­lis but I will not touch what this mul­ti-ta­len­ted bac­te­ri­um is so well known for: spo­ru­la­tion, bio­film for­ma­tion, mo­ti­li­ty by swim­ming, swarm­ing mo­ti­li­ty, can­ni­ba­lism, and "na­tu­ral com­pe­tence" for DNA up­take (aka trans­for­ma­tion). It's about the re­act­ion of B. sub­ti­lis to food de­pri­va­tion. Read more →

Geography and Geology

by Elio | When Biology emerged as a mo­dern sci­ence du­ring the Re­nais­san­ce, there was only one kind. By and large, the same people car­ried out field ob­ser­va­tions and ex­pe­ri­ments. In time, this uni­ty of ap­proach got lost, with the "na­tu­ra­lists" and the "ex­pe­ri­men­ta­lists" go­ing their se­pa­ra­te ways. Some­time du­ring the 20th cen­tu­ry,... Read more →

The world of small RNAs and regulatory peptides in prokaryotes

by Matthias Gimpel | The natural habitats of most bac­te­ria are cha­rac­te­ri­zed by chan­ging en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions such as fluc­tua­tions in tem­pe­ra­ture, os­mo­la­ri­ty, chan­ging or li­mi­ted nu­trient sup­ply, or the oc­cur­rence of com­pe­ting mi­cro­bes and bac­te­rio­pha­ges. Con­se­quent­ly, fle­xible and ener­gy-ef­fi­cient adap­ta­tion to these chan­ging ex­ter­nal pa­ra­me­ters is the basis for their sur­vi­val. Read more →