Small Things Considered

Lost in the Pacific Mangrove Forest Microbiomes

by Mechas Zambrano | One of the perks of being a mi­cro­bio­lo­gist is par­ti­ci­pat­ing in ex­pe­di­tions at re­mote lo­ca­tions to col­lect samp­les for our proj­ects. My most re­cent ex­cur­sion was to the south­ern Pa­ci­fic coast of Co­lom­bia, a far-off re­gion re­plete with man­grove for­ests. The pur­pose was to ob­tain samp­les of the bi­valve Ana­da­ra tu­ber­cu­lo­sa, lo­cal­ly... Read more →

Talmudic Question #192

contributed by Pok Man Leung
The natural habitats of chemolithotrophs such as Lepto­spirillum and Pyrolobus contain organic compounds. Yet, when grown in the lab, these microbes... Read more →

Evolution-Proofing Antibiotics

by Vilhelmiina Haavisto | Since the dis­co­ve­ry of pe­ni­cil­lin and its de­vel­op­ment in­to a the­ra­peu­tic agent, an­ti­bio­tics have re­vo­lu­tion­ized me­di­cine and saved count­less lives. How­ever, the way we use these life-sav­ing me­di­cat­ions is fun­da­men­tal­ly un­sus­tain­able as pa­tho­gens ra­pid­ly evolve re­sist­ance, ren­der­ing ma­ny se­ri­ous in­fect­ions ef­fect­ive­ly un­treat­able. Read more →

Fine Reading: Thank You, Pseudo-U!

by Roberto | Yesterday, when I walked into the corner pharmacy to receive my COVID-19 vaccine "booster" I once again marveled at this truly remarkable scientific achievement. Less than a year after the sequence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus was made public, the public at large began receiving mRNA vaccines. Read more →

Pictures Considered #55: Conjugation, and some pairing issues

by Christoph | If you've ever taken a class on bac­te­ri­al ge­ne­tics, ei­ther re­cent­ly or in the last few de­ca­des, you've no doubt seen this image: the con­ju­ga­tion of two bac­te­ri­al cells (Figure 1). And if you found this image so self-ex­pla­na­to­ry that you didn't both­er to ask for the source, you're not alone. The in­ter­net is re­plete with it, in vary­ing... Read more →

Are We in Danger of Technology (Once Again?)

by Elio | In a world beset by worries about using CRISPR and such technologies for potentially wicked purposes (e.g., cloning potentially dangerous foreign genes into babies' genomes), I am reminded about how such concerns were handled in the beginning of the story, when recombinant DNA technology first emerged. Read more →

TWiM 254: Episymbionts Are Good For You

On This Week in Microbiology: Episymbionts Are Good For You Read more →

A Most Lively Virus – and an Addendum

by Merry and the STC team
Mor­pho­lo­gi­cal­ly speak­ing, the vi­rus­es of me­so­phi­lic and mo­de­ra­te­ly ther­mo­phi­lic bac­te­ria and ar­chaea are a dull bunch. Of 5,100 surveyed, 97% are ho-hum head-and-tail phages − icosahedral heads with helical tails... Read more →

Fine Reading: The History of Microbiology

by Elio | In the current issue of Annual Reviews of Microbiology, Roberto has written a piece called History of Microbiology, a Per­sonal Interpretation, that is so outstanding that words nearly fail me. I found it amazing in its depth, breadth, ... Read more →

How E. coli Rose to Prominence

by Roberto | I could not help it, I had to include the word "rose" in the title of this post. The rea­son? I was dri­ven to do so in­spired by a re­mark­able bit of in­ves­ti­ga­tive re­port­ing by Me­mo Berk­men and Paul Riggs pos­ted in STC in 2016. Therein they de­scribe their he­roic – even if failed – at­tempts at de­ter­min­ing how E. coli K-12 got its name... Read more →