Small Things Considered

TWiM #62: Breaking Bad and Protein Chain Mail

Vincent and Michael discuss how infection with influenza A virus disperses Streptococcus pneumoniae biofilms leading to disease, and an amazing protein chainmail in a viral capsid. Read more →

Mycorrhizal Fungi: The World’s Biggest Drinking Straws And Largest Unseen Communication System

by Elio | Quick, which is the biggest symbiotic association on Earth? Did you guess the mycorrhizae? They are the huge symbioses between fungi and the roots of most terrestrial plants. Their total size is not easy to measure because not all the fungal filaments in soils are mycorrhizal nor are the mycorrhizal… Read more →

A Whiff of Taxonomy – Archaeoglobus fulgidus

by Elio | Pick an archaeon, any archaeon, and you will find it has a story to tell. Not all archaea are exotic but plenty of them are. These stalwarts live in environments we humans call extreme, where they carry out what to us seem extreme types of metabolic conversions. Most have come… Read more →

Oddly Microbial: Programmed Cell Death

by Marcia Stone | The lab was a crime scene; dead and dying cells were everywhere—but did they commit mass suicide or were they murdered? The burly young post doc who discovered the corpses sat in the corner sobbing softly, his PI by his side. She was trying in vain to comfort her… Read more →

TWiM #61: The Irony of Probiotics

Vincent, Elio, and Michele review how horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to an insect genome enables a tripartite nested mealybug symbiosis, and how probiotic bacteria work by competing for iron in the intestine. Read more →

Pictures Considered #7. Cocci Divide at The Equator

by Elio | In 1962 Cole and Hahn published in Science an unassuming sounding paper entitled Cell wall replication in Streptococcus pyogenes. The authors asked the question: do strep cells synthesize their cell wall by intercalating new parts at different sites on their surface or does this take place at one site… Read more →

Polymicrobial Infections: Perhaps The Rule, Not The Exception

by Katy Patras | The recent film World War Z describes an apocalyptic event where a rabies-like virus spreads via bite wounds to the majority of Earth’s population and turns them into zombies. Since the world’s leading virologist dies early in the film, it is up to Brad Pitt’s character to find the source… Read more →

From The Program of 1st Annual Meeting Society of American Bacteriologists, 1899

by Elio | Wouldn’t you be tempted to attend such a session if it were part of a current-day ASM meeting? The first five papers ever delivered to a meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologist (now the ASM) are so utterly relevant to our concerns that they could be delivered now. No changes… Read more →

Weathering the Storm…the Archaeal Way

by Mike Manzella | Our understanding of microbial life is greatly biased by our narrow focus on microbes as they grow in the laboratory. Yet, as discussed previously in this blog, microbes can persist in various dormant forms for extended periods of time. Sporulation (from the Greek “spora” or seed) is perhaps the best-known strategy… Read more →