Small Things Considered

Let Them Eat Mushrooms

by Elio  
People who venture into forests in search of mushrooms have insects to contend with. I don't mean mosquitoes, wasps, and bees. I mean bugs that enjoy eating mushrooms at least as much as some of us do. Mushroom hunting is a chancy enterprise at best. But as if that weren't enough, sometimes we come upon... Read more →

The Mush in Mushrooms

by Elio  
You probably think that ultimately all mushrooms turn into mush. Well, yes, indeed they do, but some do it with alacrity. A group of mushrooms called Inky Caps have a way of getting rid of unwanted tissue in their cap by dissolving it. Some of these mushrooms... Read more →

Deadly Pretzels

by Elio  
Nasty stuff, those toxins responsible for the toxicity of deadly poisonous Amanita mushrooms. They are pretzel-shaped, bicyclic octa- and heptapeptides known as amatoxins and phallotoxins. One of them, α-amanitin, is familiar to many as a handy reagent for inhibiting RNA polymerase II in the lab. Another one, phalloidin, binds to actin and inhibits... Read more →

Fiddling with Fungi

by Elio  
Next time you hear a dazzling violinist play on an exceptional instrument, think fungi. (Yes, I can hear it: Here he goes again, playing his old refrain: fungi, fungi…) The reason is that fungi may help us to produce instruments that, at long last, may be comparable to those made by Stradivari and... Read more →

But Is It Good to Eat?

by Elio  
If you are into wild mushrooming, the question you'll be asked most often by someone holding a specimen is: Is it good to eat?  I sometimes answer with a dyspeptic: Before I tell you, would you recognize it if you saw it again?  But now I have a more friendly answer... Read more →

Talmudic Question #37

by Rob Edwards
What's the lowest temperature at which microbes can grow? Clearly it is below 0°C and above −273°C, so we have a range. Read more →

A Timely Article on the Anthrax Story

by Elio
An opinion piece by Wendy Orent on bioterrorism that we found particularly illuminating was published on August 13, 2008, in the Los Angeles Times. Read more →

Fine Reading: E. coli Goes Green

by Tom Bernhardt  
Waste not, want not, as the old saying goes. Bacteria have apparently heeded this advice for some time, and this is no doubt one reason why they are such successful organisms. Perhaps we humans should take notes. This spotlight on the recent literature is to point your attention to a recent review article by James (Ted) Park and Tsuyoshi Uehara... Read more →