by S. Marvin Friedman — Whether inhabiting soil, fresh water, or marine ecosystems, bacteria are constantly facing the threat of numerous and effective predators such as protists, nematodes, or phages. To defend against such predation, bacteria have evolved a number of strategies, including getting larger in size, moving faster, producing defensive secondary metabolites, and forming…
Who Would Have Thought? by Elio — Rafflesias in the tropical rain forests of Southeast Asia produce some of the biggest flowers in the world, up to one meter in diameter. They're not microbes by anyone's definition of the term. Adding to their notoriety is their carrion-like smell to attract insects for pollination service. The reason they…
by Melissa Wilks — Every day we see animals migrating through the air, across plains, and in the oceans, in beautifully coordinated patterns; starlings flock together in the thousands while sardines swim together in enormous shoals. These social behaviors are important in allowing animals to socialize, avoid predators, and find refuge and food. But what…
Past the origin of the first cell, what do you consider to have been the single most important event in evolution?
A recorded version of a live streaming video episode of This Week in Microbiology (TWiM), a podcast about unseen life on Earth, with Vincent Racaniello, a Higgins Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University. In Denver, Racaniello, co-host Michael Schmidt, and guests discuss E. coli, one…
by Susan Golden — If one were to ask, "What happens when Salmonella infects the gut?" it might not be obvious that you'd also need to ask, "What time is it?" But indeed you'd need to know the latter to appropriately address the former. An invading Salmonella, intent on setting up camp, is trying…
