by Elio — For the midterm exam of the UCSD/SDSU graduate course Integrative Microbiology that Doug Bartlett and I teach, we gave students the option of answering this Talmudic, open-ended-type question: 'How would you go about defending the statement that "all living things are connected to other living things" to an educated lay audience? What examples would you present to illustrate how pervasive this is in the living world?' Read more →
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Fine Reading: Insights Into How We Got Here
by Elio — It may appeal to lazy minds (mine included) to think that progress in science takes place along gradual and predictable lines. Somehow, this seems simpler and therefore more satisfying than the alternative. However, nothing could be more wrong... Read more →
TWiM #128
On This Week in Microbiology: a eukaryote without a mitochondrion, and using a phage enzyme to eliminate intracellular bacteria... Read more →
Who Feasts on Volcanic Fluids?
by Than Kyaw — When limiting nutrients like nitrates and phosphates are introduced into a body of water, microscopic algae multiply so much that the water changes color. For example, in response to fertilizer runoff, a 2011 cyanobacteria bloom changed the clear waters of Lake Erie into a dark-green soup and forced the nearby city of Toledo into a state of water crisis. Read more →
A Snippet: Oceanic Conversations
by Elio — In the ocean, bacteria and eukaryotic microbes (mainly the phytoplankton) interact in various ways, some mutually beneficial, others detrimental. Many, perhaps most of these interactions, take place via chemical communications. If you had a hydro phone-like gadget that could detect chemicals instead of sound, the racket would be deafening. Yet, we know little about these goings-on. Read more →
The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend – A Microbial Solution to The Emperor of all Maladies
by Elie J. Diner — Following the State of the Union Address by President Obama and his declaration "to cure cancer once and for all," a recent post on this blog pondered the following: How can microbes contribute to this effort of finding a cure for cancer? This seems to be a true underdog situation considering the size difference between a bacterial cell (~1 µm^3) and a mammalian cancer cell (~2,000 µm^3). Given how many of these cancerous cells... Read more →
Pictures Considered #37 : The Queen's Necklaces
by Christoph — Rod-shaped Escherichia coli cells have, depending on growth conditions, a length of 1–2 µm and a diameter of ~0.5 µm but harbor a chromosome that is ~1.5 mm long, a difference in length by a factor of 1,000. So, there is a problem to fit this chromosome into the cell, right? Not so, in fact, because... Read more →
Subway Snowblowers and Men in Black - This Week in Microbiology #127
TWiM #127: Microbes in snowblower vents on the ocean floor, and cleavage of antibody molecules by a Mycoplasma protease. Read more →
Need protection? Hire a virus! – Part Deux
by Jamie Henzy — Readers of STC are likely aware that sequences from viruses infecting a host can sometimes wind up inserted into the host chromosomal DNA, even being passed on to offspring if the insertion occurs in an egg or sperm cell. This happens most frequently with retroviruses, which insert into host DNA as part of... Read more →
Talmudic Question #133
Operons are a phenomenal way to regulate the expression of several genes at once. They are widely used in the prokaryotic world but scantly among the eukaryotes (and then with variations on their usage). Why haven’t eukaryotes made greater use of this ingenious device? Read more →