Small Things Considered

Six Questions About CRISPRs

by Merry Youle Sitting ducks. Source Phage predation on bacteria is intense, but bacteria are not defenseless sitting ducks. They make use of a repertoire of diverse strategies to stay even with even the wiliest of phages. First line...

On the Discovery of CRISPR – An Interview

by Roberto Figure 1. Francisco Mojica. Source: Taller de Ima­gen de la Universidad de Alicante, Spain It was August 21, 1992 when a graduate student at the University of Alicante, Spain studying the transcriptional responses of the ar...

Getting CRISPR

by Merry Youle Phages on the surface of an Escherichia coli cell deliver genetic material into the bacterium. © Eye of Science/Science Source When you're outnumbered five or ten to one, strategy counts. Bacteria and archaea are master ...

What Happened to Our Friendly Enterococci?

by Merry Youle Enterococci had been generally regarded as benign commensals, a part of our healthy intestinal microbiota. They were even invited in, being used as probiotics. But then, in the late 1970s, the first multiple drug-resistan...

Evolution? Who Needs It Now That We Have CRISPR/Cas9s?

by Marcia Stone By replacing unwanted genes with those more to our liking in germline cells, CRISPR/Cas9 enables us to take charge of our own destiny. Figure 1. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. Source As reported on Small Things Considered in ...

Plimpton v. Muybridge

by Christoph Weigel In July, an article by journalist Megan Molteni from the tech magazine Wired had hit the headlines: "Scientists Upload a Galloping Horse GIF Into Bacteria With Crispr". Wow! And a second 'wow!' fol­lowed suit when a...

Retrospective, June 2013

We continue our semi-annual ritual and post this quick tour of our blog posts published since December, 2012. Pretty picture. Source. Pictures Considered Our new section dealing with “pictures that made a difference but may be nearly...

Retrospective, December 2011

We’ve prepared this quick tour for you, with brief visits to all the major articles we posted since our May, 2011, retrospective. Source. Microbial Behavior Are You Me or Am I You? Proteus mirabilis is one sentient bug: it can disti...