Small Things Considered

A Special Issue

by Elio
I have long enjoyed the journal Nature Microbiology, but the August 2016 issue surpasses what I have read before. Practically every entry is it standout.I will mention only a few but encourage all to have a look... Read more →

Black Death for Corals:The Polymicrobial Pathogenesis of Black Band Disease

by Daniel P. Haeusser | This June Disney released the anticipated Pixar Animation Studios sequel Finding Dory to earn the largest animated film opening receipts in North America ever. The popularity of the original Finding Nemo in 2003 led to reportedly increased demand for clownfish like Nemo for pets; some concerned environmentalists worry that... Read more →

Talmudic Question #135

"Invasive species" is a common topic among plant and animal ecologists. Why is it not much used in the context of microbial diversity? Read more →

Pictures Considered #38 : A Molecular Stiletto

by Christoph Weigel | Imagine you equip your standard E. coli  cells with a few additional genes, conveniently placed on plasmids and under control of inducible promoters. You grow the cells and induce the expression of these additional genes. Not long after, the cytoplasm of the cells turns reddish, when looked at under the fluorescence microscope, due to... Read more →

On Teaching...

by Michael Malamy | For at least twenty years now I have given a few lectures with discussion sections on the early papers of Benzer on rII, followed by the exploitation of the rII system by Crick, Brenner and their colleagues to study the nature of mutations arising spontaneously or after treatment with mutagenic agents, the nature of the genetic code... Read more →

Catch as Catch Can

by Elio | The much admired late marine microbiologist Ralph Lewin coined the term "ixotrophy" to describe how certain bacteria catch their prey by having a sticky surface. (Iχo- is derived from the Greek for "sticky" and iχos means birdlime, the name of the gluey stuff used for trapping birds). Many readers, at least the older ones, will be reminded of flypaper. Read more →

Signing Books in Boston

While attending this year's ASM Microbe conference in Boston, MA., Elio had a chance to sign copies of his newest books, In The Company of Microbes and Microbe, Second Edition. And we were there to film it. Watch as Elio and co-author Michele Swanson describe what you'll find in the pages of these great new books. Read more →

Bottoms up: Nefarious Nematodes and Red Rumps

by Michael Haar | Deep in the Amazon, a super­villain of mi­cro­sco­pic pro­por­tions strikes fear into the ganglion of honest tree-dwelling ants in every canopy. Myr­me­co­ne­ma neo­tro­pi­cum is a pa­ra­si­tic ne­ma­tode, one of the count­less species in the phylum Ne­ma­to­da that exist in nearly every lo­cation on Earth. For many, pa­ra­si­tism is a topic that can... Read more →