by Christoph — When biochemists deciphered the genetic code in the 1960s (the triplet 'alphabet' for amino acids whose defined order make up the protein 'words' ) it was, and still is, the most compelling evidence for a common "descent with modifications" (Charles Darwin) of all life on Earth: the alphabet is the same in all life forms. This holds true... Read more →
« December 2016 | Main | February 2017 »
Pictures Considered #43 : The Sinking of René Descartes?
by Christoph — Today, I deviate from STC's habit to present in our Pictures Considered series one of the "visual highlights" of biology – iconic drawings, sketches, photographs, autoradiograms or electron micrograms that convey as much insight as lengthy texts (at least for those contemporaries equipped with more strongly developed visual perception). Read more →
Meet the Xenophyophores!
by Chris Mah — So, following up with all of the NOAA deep-sea 'Okeanos Explorer' stuff, I've found that I am just fascinated by these things called xenophyophores! The name means "Bearer of foreign bodies". But what are they? To put it simply, they are giant, deep-sea amoebas that live in large, sediment "houses" called "tests"... Read more →
Talmudic Question #141
How come peptides made enzymatically (independent of ribosomes) don't seem to get strung together to make a respectably sized protein? Read more →
TWiM #143: E-scaffolds and receptor transfer
On This Week in Microbiology: The use of an electrochemical gradient to eliminate bacterial biofilms, and how phage susceptibility can be transferred by exchange of receptor proteins. Read more →
Do bacterial species really exist and why should we care?
by Kostas Konstantinidis and Roberto Kolter — The second part of the question in the title of this post is relative easy to answer; the first part is much more challenging. Defining bacterial species is not only an important academic exercise but also has major practical consequences. For example, infectious disease diagnoses, regulations involving the transport of bacteria, and educating the public regarding bacteria that are beneficial to humans, animals or... Read more →
The Ecology of Louis Pasteur
by Elio — Pasteur is as close to being the father of our science as it gets, with Robert Koch a close contender. Both made fundamental contributions, best remembered for their elucidation of the microbial origin of infectious diseases. The two came to it from rather different points of view and the contrast between them... Read more →
Microbial Reading Roundup
by Daniel P. Haeusser — Today I wanted to catch up with some recent books that visitors to this blog may have interest in adding to their microbiological library. So here is a roundup of six academic microbial titles of note that make up a trio of related pairs. Read more →
Teach to Teach
by Elio — Typical of old folks, my mind readily wanders back to events in earlier days. High on the list of memories that pop up is that of my very first lecture. It's one that I gave to medical students, the year being 1962 or 10 years after Watson and Crick. Imagine the thrill. Read more →