Noteworthy — Absorbed in our daily activities and concerns, personal, local or global, we remain largely unaware of how life unfolds on this planet. Viruses, and especially those in our vast oceans, play a major life-defining role. Read more →
Noteworthy — Absorbed in our daily activities and concerns, personal, local or global, we remain largely unaware of how life unfolds on this planet. Viruses, and especially those in our vast oceans, play a major life-defining role. Read more →
Posted on March 13, 2025 at 02:30 AM in Noteworthy, Viruses | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Lucas Le Nagard — Swimming E. coli typically cover a distance equivalent to the radius of a human hair each second. It might not seem very impressive… But for a 2 µm bacterium, it corresponds to 10 body lengths per second! Much better than the swimming speed of our best athletes, which barely exceeds one body length per second. So, how does E. coli achieve this? Read more →
Posted on March 10, 2025 at 02:30 AM in Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)
Noteworthy — The human microbiome – the collection of microbes associated with our bodies – is variable, adapts to its host, but, most importantly, is increasingly recognized as important for our health and physiology. The sheer number and diversity of microbes, not to mention their interactions and activities, makes the study of the microbiome complex. How, then, can we understand what these microbes are doing? Read more →
Posted on March 06, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Noteworthy, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Christoph — When you leave 𝕏 (formerly Twitter), it means that among the “bookmarks” you take with you, you will also come across some that contain images or videos that are mainly nice to look at and even entertaining. Two of these – no, none of the infamous cat pictures – are included today, in 'Lost & Found #4'. Read more →
Posted on March 03, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)
Noteworthy — While many of our interactions with microbes are essential for our health, microbes are also well-known causes of diseases, such as the bubonic plague, that have decimated populations. We are, therefore, fortunate to count on antimicrobial drugs to eliminate harmful pathogens. Read more →
Posted on February 27, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Evolution, Noteworthy | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Tobias Engl — Beewolves, their larvae, and their Streptomyces symbionts not only use multiple, largely different classes of chemical compounds to protect themselves against detrimental microbial competitors. To be most effective, these compounds are produced and deployed in a precisely timed sequence. Beewolves are solitary digger wasps that hunt on bees, paralyze them and provision single eggs with... Read more →
Posted on February 24, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Physiology & Genetics, Symbioses, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)
Noteworthy — While the phages χ and PBS1 attach to the flagella of their hosts via the tail fibers, phage 7-7-1 of Agrobacterium sp. H13-3 has another trick up its sleeve – or better: on its head (capsid). Noteborn et al. Found that phage 7-7-1 sports a bunch of dreadlocks on its head, proteinaceous fibers with which it attaches to host flagella. Read more →
Posted on February 20, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Noteworthy, Viruses | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Christoph — Microbiologists know of only a small number of genuine rapacious bacterial species. In scientific terms, they are referred to as "predatory bacteria". Well-known examples are Myxococcus xanthus and its ilk, which practice "wolf pack" swarm hunting, and the more solitary vampires from the Bdellovibrio tribe. Enter the pirates with Captain Aureispira… Read more →
Posted on February 18, 2025 at 02:25 AM in Ecology | Permalink | Comments (0)
Noteworthy — We are living through interesting times, to say the least. Not long ago, though now it may feel that it's been eons, we could freely celebrate microbial diversity, biodiversity, structural diversity, diversity of opinions, diversity of interests and, yes, human diversity even! Read more →
Posted on February 13, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Noteworthy, Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Christoph — If you want to leave 𝕏 (formerly Twitter) for any reason, you can deactivate or completely delete your account. That's it then. But if you want to take a few still interesting bookmarks with you when you move out, well, then the 𝕏odus takes a little longer. Here are three more of these salvaged bookmarks, in 'Lost & Found #3'. Read more →
Posted on February 10, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)