Small Things Considered

A Microbial Utopia: Cheese

by Nathan Jayne, Amanda Alker, and Nathalie Delherbe
Over the past decade, there have been many large scale attempts to characterize bacterial communities, from soil and ocean microbiomes to human microbiomes. There is even a collective effort to profile the Earth’s microbiome. Scientists are not only interested in knowing who is there and what they are doing, but also how... Read more →

Talmudic Question #153

 
Take a 1000 year old sequoia tree. What genetic difference would you expect to find if you analyzed the various branches? Read more →

A Whiff of Taxonomy – Eliobacter woosyi

by the STC team
We have the great pleasure to inform you, our Readers, that a team of microbiologists has privileged us with a peek into a draft of the first formal description ever offered of a particular bacterium that has puzzled microbiologists for almost a century. For the bacterium, they propose the name Eliobacter woosyi, and as they... Read more →

Lunar … Life?

by Gillian Belk
Four months after the first moon landing in 1969, astronauts from the Apollo 12 mission, Charles "Pete" Conrad, Alan Bean and Richard Gordan returned from the second moon landing. From the lunar surface the astronauts traveled back to Earth with moon rocks, moon soil, the Surveyor III television camera, and something remarkable. Read more →

Microbes Make the Most of Milk

by Rachel Diner
For the first year of our lives most of what we eat is milk. In fact, during the first four months it is the only thing we eat. For mothers, both breast milk and formula are popular options for getting a baby nourished, and while both breast milk and formula have the essentials needed to survive,... Read more →

STC (Mycological Division) Goes to the Movies

by Elio
You may have seen the movie Phantom Thread. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, it got six nominations for Academy awards. And it deals with mushrooms, something that doesn't happen in movies very much. Read more →

More on "How to Tell Up And Down"

by Alexander Weitzel
The process I will be discussing is plant gravitropism, the ability of higher plants to sense the vector in which gravity is acting and grow parallel to that vector, either in the positive direction (shoots and leaves) or in the negative direction (roots). Read more →

STC's Messy 'Search' Function...

by the STC team
As much as we prefer to talk about the Small Things there are instances where we have to consider how to find them in the first place, here in our blog. Turns out this is a nuisance when using our search function, which is prominently placed at the top of the right column... Read more →

Trial by Fire

by Roberto
If per chance you hear the phrase "press disturbance" you might conjure up images of chaotic news media. What with all the disturbing reports of fake news going around these days, who could blame you? At least, that was my first reaction when confronted with the term "press disturbance." But worry not reader, this post will... Read more →