by the STC team — We take advantage of this being the season for rejoicing, and take our customary winter two week vacation. We hope that you have enjoyed the past year with us and that you will return as this blog begins the 12th year of its existence. We will endeavor to the quest for more wonders of the World of Small Things. Read more →
« November 2017 | Main | January 2018 »
Phage Phactories
by Merry — t’s not news to STC readers that phages encode cytoskeletal proteins. Daniel Haeusser’s fine post related this story as it was known in 2012. Two key papers published that year investigated the tubulin homologs found in phage genomes. At that time, phage-encoded tubulin homologs fell into two phylogenetic clusters... Read more →
Living Off Air
by Roberto — For many of us that reside in Northern latitudes, we are once again approaching the shortest days of the year. Yes, these can be days of extremely inhospitable cold and dark, but daylight will return and so will warm weather. For comfort, dwellers of these Northern lands have celebrated the proximity of the Winter solstice... Read more →
To Not Get Lost in the Trees of Life (ToL)
by Christoph — Which picture comes to your mind if you think of the 'Tree of Life' (ToL) ? Maybe it's Ernst Haeckel's venerable oak tree ? Or is it rather Carl Woese's famous "three domains" phylogenetic tree ? Although highly abstract, the latter still resembles a tree with stem and branches, at least as much as does the famous "I think" sketch by Charles Darwin, on page 36 in his Notebook B. Read more →
Voyage to See What's at the Bottom
by Roberto and Elio — Ever wonder what do the creatures living in marine sediment use as food sources? It turns out that much of the food in such sediments comes from the creatures that lived in the water column, but then died and their remains sank to the bottom. The sinking cadavers may be as big as those of whales or as small as... Read more →
Investing in Diversification: Transport of Vitamin B12 Analogs by Microbes of the Human Gut
by Daniel and Elio — Both of us have blissfully going along in our lives without knowing what corrinoids are, at least not by that name. We had of course learned way back (way, way back for Elio) that cobalamin (vitamin B12) is a complicated organic molecule made up of pyrrole rings and cobalt, but we hadn't heard of its 'corrinoid' moniker. It derives from corrin, a planar tetrapyrrole ring... Read more →