Small Things Considered

A Joyous Note (Amphibian Division)

by Elio | In 2006, an Ecuadorian investigator, Eugenia Del Pino, was elected to the U. S. National Academy of Sciences. Her extraordinary contributions pertained to frog development, not exactly a microbiological subject. (She was even quoted as saying: I didn't want to work with bacteria.) Nevertheless, the announcement... Read more →

Crawlies Up My Inner Tubes

by Elio | I get somewhat squeamish when thinking of bugs crawling up my urinary tract. Perhaps you do too. The story of E. coli ascending the urinary tract, however, turns out to be fascinating, which assuages my dainty feelings. Read more →

Space Odyssey, Salmonella Style

by Elio | It would take a brave person to question a paper signed by 41 authors, especially when they performed an amazing experiment on gene activation in space. In fact, given the difficulties of carrying out such an experiment, any criticism would be downright churlish. Nevertheless... Read more →

Do Bacteria Age?

by Elio | The question arises: do bacteria get old? Of course they do, their being young immediately after cell division and old when they are about to divide again. But, in a different sense, do they age over many generations? Or, as is commonly assumed, does binary fission obliterate any difference between sibling cells? The question has been studied in detail... Read more →

A Masterpiece of Bacterial Structure

by Elio | Terry Beveridge of Guelph University died recently. We regret the loss of this outstanding structural microbiologist who made stellar contributions to varied topics such as the structure of the S-layer, the interaction of microbial surfaces with metals and antibiotics, bacterial cell division, Gram stain and... Read more →

Fine Literature: Shedding Light on Bacteria

by Elio | Why some bacteria are bioluminescent is a topic that just won't go away. In an earlier post, we mentioned a proposal for a role of light in the repair of UV-induced DNA damage. In 2005, Eric Stabb wrote a review in 'Microbe' that pleasantly helps in formulating the issues and clarifying the nature... Read more →

Structural Grace II

by Elio | In her autobiography in the 2007 Annual Review of Microbiology, Margarita Salas published an electron micrograph of rare beauty. It shows the DNA of phage ø29 casually coiled around itself, with protein TP (for Terminal Protein) at the two ends. Not only is this a fine demonstration of a specific DNA-protein interaction, but the... Read more →

Golden Nuggets

by Elio | Copper, uranium, gold, and other metals are mined by bacteria and archaea, and this takes place on an industrial scale. Consortia of these organisms leach minerals from ores — even low-grade ores — and thus have commercial blessing. This is an old story. Rio Tinto, a river in Southern Spain, has been known... Read more →

A Shining Mystery

by Elio | Who wouldn't agree how enormously gratifying it would be to make ecological sense of every lab finding, to see how the phenomenon being observed fits with the organism's life outside the lab. Sounds easy? Read more →

A Nice Bouquet

by Bethany D. Jenkins | "I just came across your blog and wanted to thank you for contributing such a breadth of information regarding many different aspects of microbiology. I'm going to be teaching an advanced microbiology course..." Read more →