Small Things Considered

Nano Pétanques – A Snippet

by Christoph | "The power of evolution is revealed through the di­ver­si­ty of life." Aha! It was so­lemn­ly de­clar­ed by the No­bel Prize com­mit­tee in their sta­te­ment an­nounc­ing last year's che­mis­try priz­es for "the di­rect­ed evo­lu­tion of en­zymes [and] phage dis­play of pep­tides and anti­bodies". Roy­al aca­de­mies – na­tio­nal or other aca­de­mies like­wise – tend to add luster... Read more →

Inside Earth, Microbes Approach Immortality

by Jennifer Frazer | Last December, the Deep Carbon Observatory an­nounced an astounding fact: the mass of the mi­crobes living beneath Earth's surface amounts to 15 to 23 billion tons of carbon, a sum some 245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans. That's amazing. It wasn't so long ago we weren't even sure life at depth was possible. Read more →

The Fires of Saint Anthony – A Snippet

by Roberto
Just recently, after giving a very general public lecture on microbes, the discussion went – not surprisingly – in the direction of humans and our relationships to our microbiota. Read more →

Salamalga

by Jamie | Long, long ago, some two billion years, when earthlings were represented solely by prokaryotes, there existed dense microbial mats, bustling with activity and with metabolic sophistication to match the most advanced engineering of eukaryotic metropolises of today. In­cluded in the mats were many types of bacteria alongside their "odd­ball" brethren, members of the Archaea family. Like any complex com­munity of entities with varied interests, there was friction, there was war, there were truces, there was stealing, and sometimes there was cooperation.  Read more →

Dental Care for Your Pet: For Their Health and Yours

by Meaghan O’Neill | Ever since the domestication of wolves, humans have probably remarked upon the particularly bad breath that our dog companions frequently display. Medieval illuminated bestiaries speculated that the strong odor from a wolf’s mouth could betray his presence to prey – like a flock of sheep – causing the wolf to its make approach from downwind. Read more →

Let's make some more tyrosine, together! (part 2)

by Christoph | Figure 2 in the Anbutsu et al. pa­per is so stuf­fed with in­for­ma­tion about the wee­vils' Nar­do­nel­la en­do­sym­biont ge­no­mes that I bet­ter tear it a little apart to show you that it is ac­tu­al­ly pos­sible to ob­ser­ve ge­no­me re­ducti­on 'at work'. As said in part 1, the ge­no­mes are ti­ny (0.2‒0.23 Mb) and con­tain... Read more →

Talmudic Question #161

by Elio
Can you imagine a way in which the micro­bio­me is directly in­volved in human in­telli­gence and/or con­scious­ness? Read more →

Let's make some more tyrosine, together! (part 1)

by Christoph | Surprisingly, it is not particu­lar­ly dif­fi­cult to per­suade the yeast S. ce­re­vi­si­ae to ac­cept E. co­li bac­te­ria as 'room­mates', that is, as sub­sti­tu­te for de­fec­ti­ve mi­to­chon­dria (see Elio's recent blog). As 'hous­ing me­di­a­tor' you have to pro­vide the pro­spec­ti­ve room­mate with a de­fense against the host's SNARE sys­tem, 'dis­able' both part­ners by en­gin­eering... Read more →

How is Light Made? – A Snippet

by Elio | Ever since as children we saw fireflies emitting light at night, we ranked luminescence high in excitement of natural phenomena. We learned later that other kinds of living things, such as bacteria, protists, fungi, insects, and many others, are also capable of emitting light. Read more →

Sensing Quorum Backwards

by Elio | Obvious in the establishment and progress in bacterial patho­genesis is that the inoculum, the number of bacteria entering their host at one time, must be of an effective size. Depending on the infectivity of the species, this can vary from a single bacterium to millions of them. Read more →