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. Earlier, you could also find them under "Categories" in the right-hand column of the Web page. Now, the "Categories" can be found in the page footer (Some posts are listed in more than one category.)

 

Ecology

Golden Nuggets  To mine gold, it may first have to be solubilized from quartz and then be remineralized by a highly gold-tolerant bacterium, Ralstonia metallidurans.

Microbial Sociology  The toxic component in bacterial programmed cell death, the pentapeptide NNWNN, is made by clipping it off the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase.

Lost City Ramblings  Astounding white smokers near the mid-Atlantic ridge provide a rich and distinctive microbial ecosystem.

Prochlorococci to the Head of the Class  The genomes of 12 of these most abundant marine photosynthesizers are now available, with interesting implications.

Archaeal Web  Some hyperthermophilic archaea are enmeshed in a web-like structure of their own making, formed from bundles of hollow tubules called ”cannulae."

Electrifying Bacteria!  Graduate students write about "electrogenic” bacteria and the nanowires that connect them.

Feed From the Hand That Bites You  Some bacteria feed on antibiotics. The nerve!

Protists

Sex (Well, Not Really) and the Single Organelle  How do those one-copy-per-cell organelles divide?

Evolution

Special Delivery ─ Eukaryote Style  Eukaryotic parasites use sophisticated systems to inject effector molecules into host cells.

An Ancient Fungus On A Fungus On A Fungus  An amber nugget reveals a three-tiered fungal parasitism from 100 million years ago.

Fossil Fats  Did you know that ancient fossils contain some 10¹² tons of polycyclic terpenoids? Let Tanja Bosak explain this “fossil fat” story.

Earliest Archaeology  Who came first: Archaea or Bacteria? Read how tRNAs provide a clue.

Some Like It Linear  The E. coli chromosome can be linearized without any apparent ill effects. Are we surprised?

Play It Again, Cyan  So, what is a chromatophore? An actual plastid or a mere endosymbiont?

Fungi

The Perfect Pitch  How do mushrooms discharge their spores. With gusto! See a great movie from Nik Money.

Physiology & Genetics

Archaeal Ninjas  Ever hear of a hamus? About time you did!

Wayward Locomotive  The terminal organelle of some mycoplasmas provides the cell's motility and, if severed from its cell, wanders off alone.

Protein Origami  Yeasts have prion-like proteins, but no mad cow disease. In fact, those prions might even be beneficial.

Subtle Bacillus subtilis  During sporulation, when the DNA translocase (SpIIIE) moves the DNA into the forespore, how does it know to push (or pull) one direction and not the other?

Getting CRISPR  The insertion of copied phage DNA sequences into clusters of repeated sequences protects bacteria from the corresponding phages. Who would have thought?

Plentisillin and Penicillin: An Antibiotic Spoof and a Tragedy  Ronald Bentley and Joan Bennett share with us stories of the discovery of penicillin.

BYOG: Bring Your Own Gene  Phages of cyanobacteria carry some genes for photosynthesis to ensure a continuing supply of energy and metabolites for their own reproduction.

Where Art Thou, O Ribosome?  Do some cryoelectron tomography and you can find out where the ribosomes are in a bacterial cell.

Gulliver and the Lilliputians  Two hyperthermophilic Archaea grow together in an intimate association that defies simple categorization as either symbiosis or parasitism.

The Tip of the Iceberg  David Hopwood tells us about antibiotic-resistant bacteria that make antibiotics in larger quantities.

The Long Star State  Kevin Young makes us smile with his story of bacteria that look like churros.

Pathogens

A Shining Mystery  Some bacteria that grow in the dark have light receptors. How come?

Crawlies Up My Inner Tubes  Crawling up to the kidney is not the same as infecting the bladder. Even E. coli knows that.

Pathogen On Board (River Blindness)  River blindness, long thought to be caused by a worm, is instead the work of the worm’s endosymbiotic bacterium.

The Bile Salt Giveth and the Bile Salt Taketh Away  Clostridium difficile, the agent of pseudomembranous colitis, responds differently to various bile salts, which may explain some aspects of the disease.

Staph And Cholesterol: An Odd Couple  Why the "aureus" in Staph. aureus? It has to do with cholesterol, of all things!

With a Little Help from Their Friends  Pathogenic genomic islands in Staph. aureus travel from host to host as phage-like particles!

The Pathogen's Guide to Profiting From the Immune System  Pathogenic bacteria have their ways for appropriating the innate immune response for their own benefit.

Symbioses

It's a Chaperonin, It's a Toxin, It's...  Is the chaperonin GroEL a toxin? Antlions think so.

Fungal Cuckoo  A fungus fools termites into tending its spores as if they were their own eggs.

Methodology

The Age of Imaging  Elio muses about the astounding new/old world of microscopy.

Your Name and Occupation?  Jennifer Gutierrez writes about new techniques that reveal both phenotype and genotype of individual bacteria in nature.

 
 

 
 

Comments

[Mark O. Martin]

Dear Elio and Merry:

I'm just one voice, and every professor has a different audience, and thus different pedagogical needs. For me, I teach at a small liberal arts institution, and I have only one shot to teach microbiology---generally to juniors and seniors. They have had several cell and molecular biology based courses by the time I see them (but I sometimes worry about how much is retained from course to course). I think that one entry per week would work out well. We have about 12 - 13 weeks of classes...so I would think about twelve to thirteen "entries."

I believe that the themes should follow the course material/progression in some fashion. For example:

I. Weird and Wonderful Microbiology (what would happen if all microbes vanished, etc).
II. History and Microbiology
III. How to observe microbes
IV. Microbial form and structure
V. How microbes obtain carbon and energy
VI. How microbes are related to one another
VII. Microbes interacting with other microbes
VIII. Microbes interacting with animals and plants in a positive fashion
IX. Microbes interacting with animals and plants in a negative fashion
X. Microbes in everyday life
X. The deeply weird microbial world
XI. The future of microbiology

So I am trying to look through STL entries to see what appeals in each of those categories.

Normally, I would say that assigning a webpointer once a week should be sufficient. Some students would rather have a short PDF (or perhaps a given STL entry could be converted into PDF easily) in their hands.

I am thinking about using the STL entries in two ways: strange/wonderful microbiological facts not to be found in textbooks, and perhaps more importantly, a way to get students to read and think about the primary literature. I am thinking of the latter goal as "carrot and stick." On each exam will be "simple questions" relating to the blog entries and accompanying references. But there WILL be an extra credit question on each exam that would only be answerable if the student had read the paper in question carefully.

These are just things that occur to me, Merry and Elio. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary. But I hope that STL can be used as a resource to get students thinking "outside the box" and get them reading the primary literature. Thanks for your hard work.

A long entry, but you did ask...

Best, Mark Martin