Small Things Considered

The Colors of the Microbial Rainbow

by Gemma Reguera
Our appreciation of the colors of nature is limited by the narrow wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can detect. This portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 390 and 750 nm is what we refer to as the visible (vis) light or, simply, light. We cannot see below… Read more →

Fungal Meningitis Bulletin

by Elio
We seldom post items of immediacy, but here we interrupt our leisurely ways to write about the current disastrous meningitis outbreak caused by the injection of fungus-contaminated steroids and other drugs. As microbiologists, the question comes to mind at once: Who is the pathogen? The fungus implicated is Exserohilum rostratum(although a couple… Read more →

The Tyranny of Phylogeny: An Exhortation

by Elio
There are days when I wish that the Woesian Three Domain scheme were wrong. Not that I would be happier if there were four or five or whatever number of domains. What would please me would be an escape from what I feel is an unnecessarily oppressive way of thinking, the seating… Read more →

TWiM #44: Phage interruptus

Vincent, Michael, Elio discuss the role of prophage excision in exit of Listeria from the phagosome, and analysis of bacterial communities in saliva. Read more →

A Kick in the Midgut

by S. Marvin Friedman
Malaria is one of the most devastating infectious diseases in the world today. About 400 million people are infected each year and of those 1.2 million die. Efforts to control malaria have been held back by the lack of an effective vaccine, the alarming rapidity with which Plasmodium, the protozoan parasite… Read more →

Fine Reading: Predation

by Elio
Big fish eat little fish, and so on, the ultimate “so on” being the microbes, which are typically placed at the bottom of the food web. In the oceans, bacteria are commonly set upon by protists, in soils also by nematodes and other small animals. And everywhere, there lurk virulent phages… Read more →

Who Would Have Thought It? Bacterial Cannonballs!

by Elio
Biomineralization has long been recognized as an important albeit not always appreciated process in microbiology. Too bad, because microbes have literally made mountains. They have formed huge rock deposits, such as the celebrated White Cliffs of Dover, these being the accumulation of calcium carbonate shells of the alga… Read more →

TWiM #43: Bacterial Caveolae and Zapping Acne with Phages

Vincent, Michael, Elio review formation of caveolae in a bacterium, and the limited genetic diversity and broad killing activity of P. acnes bacteriophages. Read more →

Talmudic Question #91

Why don't eukaryotes (with few exceptions) have operons in their genomes? Read more →

Faster than a Speeding Bolt: Mycoplasma Walk This Way

by Daniel P. Haeusser
Many prokaryotes move actively in liquid (swim) or on moist solid surfaces (swarm and glide) toward or away from a stimulus, such as a nutrient, light, or oxygen. Not surprisingly, prokaryotes have evolved numerous means of locomotion built around distinct molecular mechanisms… Read more →