Small Things Considered

Nuclear Option

by Elio  
Some marine animals – clams, flatworms, and hydras – have green body parts although that is not their true color. Rather, they look green because they have ingested microscopic algae. Inside the animals, the algae act as photosynthetic symbionts, tiny gardens that provide their host with products of their... Read more →

Talmudic Question #6

With the buzz created by the discovery of giant viruses, e.g., Mimivirus, the distinction between viruses and cells is said to get blurred. I maintain that this is not the case because the single most important distinction is that viruses lose... Read more →

Ciliate 007

by Elio  
Certain marine ciliates use devices worthy of James Bond. Or so it looks like. These creatures carry bacterial ectosymbionts belonging to the Verrucomicrobia that have extraordinary attributes. Before revealing what this is... Read more →

Talmudic Question #5

In a recent essay in Nature, Margaret McFall-Ngai posits that with regards to intracellular bacteria, “Although widespread among invertebrates, such associations seem to be absent from vertebrates.” Can you... Read more →

Prokaryotes by Any Other Name....

by Elio  
Definitions in biology tend to be elusive because they are often peppered with exceptions. Right now, defining prokaryotes (Bacteria and Archaea, cells without a real nucleus) as being different from eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus) is the subject of a lively discussion. One writer of a piece in Nature does not believe... Read more →

Bacterial Physiology in Unexpected Places

by Elio  
In a recent Friday New York Times puzzle, the definition for 20 Across was: "Legionella and Listeria" -- 7 letters. Hint: the first two letters are "ae." The answer is... Read more →

All in the Family

by Elio  
In Spanish or Italian,“colmo” means that something has truly reached the limit, the last straw. For endosymbionts, this can be claimed by bacteria that live not just inside host cells, but within their mitochondria. El colmo! This unusual... Read more →