Small Things Considered

Talmudic Question #74

by Welkin Johnson
Do the seven strategies in the Baltimore scheme of viral replication represent all possible ways of being a virus? Have other strategies fallen by the evolutionary wayside? Read more →

Coping with Hard Times: Death as an Option

by Elio
First, some musings about life and death, two matters that don't seem to occupy the same space in our brain. We tend to celebrate the former and resent the latter, and we often see the world through this perspective. Only on reflection do we realize how wrong this is… Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Millisievert

by Elio
Reports in the media of the nuclear plant disasters in Japan often cite the amount of radioactivity released in units called millisieverts. Not knowing what a millisievert is, I resorted to Wikipedia for the needed clarification. We reproduce some of their explanation here as a public service... Read more →

Six Questions About CRISPRs

by Merry Youle
Phage predation on bacteria is intense, but bacteria are not defenseless sitting ducks. They make use of a repertoire of diverse strategies to stay even with even the wiliest of phages. First line defenses are those that block phage entry at the door. Often these involve modifying a surface component… Read more →

Microbial Embraces

by Elio
There are embraces and there are embraces. Some may last for a lifetime, as was thought to be the case with some schistosomes (though it turns out that a few pairs do get a divorce). Other contacts, as with humans, may become quite intimate and lead to the transfer of biological… Read more →

Cyanobacteria: Growing a Green Future Around the Clock

by Spencer Diamond and Britt Flaherty
With such famous bacteria as Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis hogging the stage, it can be hard for bugs like cyanobacteria to enter the limelight. However, without E. coli and B. subtilis we would still be here today; without cyanobacteria (or something with similar capabilities) earth would be an anaerobic… Read more →

Beyond the Bacterial Microcompartment

by Merry Youle
Bacterial microcompartments were a great innovation. As Alan Derman explained, these protein-bounded structures assist with diverse metabolic processes by housing the requisite enzymes along with their substrates, sequestering potentially toxic intermediates, and allowing the products to exit. But the story does not end there. Enter the nanocompartment… Read more →

Pneumococcus: Nature’s Tiniest Cheat

by Brandon Kim and Jon Sin
To a pathogenic microbe, the human body is a foreboding environment filled with bacteriocidal immune cells ready to seek out and destroy foreign invaders. When a leukocyte detects the presence of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) present on the surface of pathogenic bacteria, it releases an array of cytokines, mounting an… Read more →

Talmudic Question #73

If people go to heaven does their microbiome go with them? Ramy Aziz, Merry, and Elio already provided some imagined responses. Read more →