Small Things Considered

The View From Here — by Shmuel Razin

Constructing a Synthetic Mycoplasma Zabriskie Point. Source I would like to raise an exciting issue that has become very hot recently and has been of great interest to me for a long time: the possibility of synthesizing a l...

Subway Snowblowers and Men in Black - This Week in Microbiology #127

The TWiM team explores microbes in snowblower vents on the ocean floor, and cleavage of antibody molecules by a Mycoplasma protease. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, Michele Swanson, and Michael Schmidt. Press play (below) t...

GleaningsGenome Synthesized by Scientists. So What?

It gives us pleasure to host the translation of an article by Miguel Vicente that appeared in the Spanish blog, Esos Pequeños Bichitos. by Miguel Vicente It's in the news! The genome of Mycoplasma genitalium has been synthesized! Once ...

Wayward Locomotive

by Elio Poor wand'ring one! Though thou hast surely strayed... Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan Mycoplasma have good press agents. They frequently make the news these days, often because they have the smalle...

A Snippet: One Fungus, Two Bacteria

by Elio Figure 1. Electron microscopy of the fungus Gigaspora margarita. (a) The two bacterial types, Candidatus Glomeribacter gigasporarum (arrow) and Mollicutes-related endobacteria (arrowhead) are present in the same district of the...

An Iconoclastic Endosymbiont

by Merry Youle The cicada Diceroprocta semicincta (male). Size: 3/4 inch. Source The endosymbionts of insects provide an unending parade of novelty. They seem to knock on our door, one after the other, each purveying some new twist of...

Where Art Thou, O Ribosome?

by Elio Cryoelectron tomography of a vitrified cell showing ribosomes and the membrane (grey) in an optical slice. Ribosomes determined with high fidelity are green, those with lesser fidelity are yellow. Source. In a recent post (The ...

Retrospective July, 2008

by Elio Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent Previous posts to this blog may be not easy to find. We present here a lightly annotated list of our "mini-essays" posted during the last year. You can also find them under "Categories" in th...

Retrospective, June 2009

by Elio We present here a lightly annotated list that includes most of our posts from the past half year. Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent Of Terms in Biology We inaugurated this department in recent months. Terms in the spotligh...