Small Things Considered

Talmudic Question #111

Can you conceive a viable (microbial) cell that has no ribosomes? Read more →

TWiM #83: Illuminating Tuberculosis and Cryptococcosis

Vincent, Michael, Elio and Michele review a new fluorogenic diagnostic test for tuberculosis bacteria, and the role of a metalloprotease in helping a fungus invade the central nervous system. Read more →

Esther Lederberg, Pioneer of Bacterial Genetics

by Mercé Piqueras
“She did pioneering work in genetics, but it was her husband who won a Nobel price.” So said an obituary in the British newspaper The Guardian regarding Esther Lederberg, a North American microbiologist married to Joshua Lederberg from 1946 to 1966. Being married to and working along such a phenomenal… Read more →

Microbial to Human Cell Ratio: Just Bragging Rights?

by Jeffrey L. Fox
Microbiota buffs repeat it often these days, proudly reminding the public that the microbial cells associated with humans outnumber their host cells by a ratio of ten-to-one. In his letter in the February 2014 Microbe, however, Judah L. Rosner of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) makes a strong case for… Read more →

When the Microbe Hits the Metal

by Leo Baumgart
Some heavy metals share a long history with microbes. Many of the metabolic processes that sustain life are believed to have originated from spontaneous reactions involving metals present in the early Earth. Our microbial ancestors figured out quickly how to use... Read more →

'Tis the Season to be Sweating

by Elio
This is the time of the year of increased physical activity when we pay special attention to certain parts of the body, including the armpit. As is usually the case, our microbiota is involved because the odor associated with sweating is produced by microbial activity. The main culprits are skin… Read more →

Animating the Inanimate

by Marcelo Barros and Brana Vlasic
Concrete is the most widely used building material in the world, with untold amounts being produced yearly. It has always been regarded as a strong, solid, impenetrable, almost indestructible material yet it can make cracks that are vulnerable to penetration by water. As the result, structures of great economic and… Read more →

TWiM #82: Betrayal and Compromise

Vincent, Michael, Elio and Michele discuss how an endosymbiont betrays its aphid host to alert plant defenses, and a new immunosuppressive cell that allows infection of neonates. Read more →

Pictures Considered #18 : Pictures of Shigella by Shiga

by Elio
The journal Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde u. Infektionskrankheiten was one of the leading publication in the early days of Microbiology. Many of the great discoveries of microbial pathogens were published therein. An example is the 1898 Japanese microbiologist Kiyoshi Shiga account of his discovery of his eponymous bacterium… Read more →

Plant Pathogen Silences Host’s Immune Genes

by S. Marvin Friedman
As more and more information becomes available, one marvels (and also frets) at the sophisticated strategies that pathogens have evolved in order to evade their hosts’ defense mechanisms. Many pathogens of plants and animals deliver effectors into their hosts in order to suppress immune responses. To date, the vast majority of… Read more →