Why do you suppose there are few, if any, mycorrhizae in aquatic environments? Read more →
« October 2013 | Main | December 2013 »
Fine Reading: Exploring the Microbial Dark Matter
by Merry Youle — We live in a world run by microbes, the vast majority of which we have yet to identify or name. We can only refer to them collectively as the microbial dark matter (MDM). However you define a prokaryotic species, and however you tally them once identified, there is a huge… Read more →
Good Old Days #2
by R.G. E. Murray — There is much that should be remembered about those days of intensive exploratory work and much of it using very simple methods and instruments. There was a remarkable amount of sharing of current work and results without much concern for primacy, which was automatically recognized. Communication was often by hand… Read more →
Antarctica's Deep Lake: A Frigid Home for Steadfast Archaea
by Elio — Some time ago, we asked this Talmudic Question: Can you think of a place on Earth where there is free water but no microbes? (A sterile flask of nutrient broth in a lab, the insides of the body, or an IV bag in a hospital don't count.) Someone answered that perhaps… Read more →
TWiM #68: The Fungus Among Us
Vincent, Elio, Michael, and Michele discuss the amazingly high level of intergenera gene exchange among haloarchaea in an Antarctic lake, and the diversity of fungi on residential surfaces and the human forehead. Read more →
Pictures Considered #10 : The Origin of Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis
by Christoph — In May 1984, readers of an article by Schwartz and Cantor in the prestigious journal 'Cell' were to stumble upon pictures of DNA agarose gels that were among the lousiest of such ever published after the method was introduced in the early 70es. Why did the editors of 'Cell' risk... Read more →
Oddly Microbial: Giant Viruses
by Marcia Stone — Viruses are supposed to be small and simple-not even alive, just mobile genetic material after all. So what do we make of giant double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses, one of which – the newly discovered Pandoravirus salinus – has an even larger genome than a hunky parasitic eukaryote called Encephalitozoon? The recent identification of P. salinus... Read more →
A Whiff of Gastronomy
by Elio — Ah, truffles! They are the gourmet’s celebration, the cook’s inspiration, the common man’s anticipation. And they demand quite a price, which at last count hovered around $2000 a pound for Italian white truffles, the French black truffles being cheaper, but still not within the reach of most people. And their production… Read more →
Count Your Mushrooms
by Elio — Maybe you have to be a mushroom enthusiast or a fungal ecologist to give this a thought, but counting the number of mushrooms in a tract of forest will not tell you the size of the fungal biomass therein. The mushrooms you see are only the fruit bodies. The whole fungal… Read more →
Radiation Ahead? Eat a Black Mushroom!
by Elio — «Week of the Fungi» on STC is a sporadic undertaking. This occasional festival is our way to hail the fall mushroom collecting season in parts of the northern hemisphere. We are a bit late this year, but mushroom collecting is still possible in many parts. Read more →