by Elio — Fungi make toxins (called, not surprisingly, mycotoxins). This won’t surprise you because you know that certain mushrooms are poisonous and you may know of the aflatoxins, noxious chemicals made by molds that grow on stored grains. Read more →
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Take a Deep Breath of... Methane
by Christoph — If you were faced with the task of preparing a lecture series on "general bacterial physiology", you could easily choose Pseudomonas aeruginosa as your companion, your model organism, to cover (almost) every topic. Yet, when it comes to metabolic versatility, you could also think of Rhodopseudomonas palustris as an alternative. This Alphaproteobacterium of the... Read more →
Psilocybin (A Snippet)
by Elio — suppose that among the readers of this blog interest in the biology and biochemistry of psilocybin may outweigh that in its recreational value (but I am not taking bets). Anyhow, there is something to report on its biosynthesis and, less so, on what's in it for the mushroom that makes it... Read more →
The Secrets of Ancient Beer
by Gillian Belk — With the Octoktoberfest themed beers flowing all season, it seemed only appropriate to have a post about the marvels of this delightful frothy beverage... Read more →
Talmudic Question #158
The genie has returned yet again. (He already visited once back in 2007.) On a moonlit night, you walk on the beach, stub your toe against a bottle, which conveniently rolls against a rock and shatters. A genie emerges, eager to grant you one wish. You ask for a microbiological laboratory. The genie grants you that, and tells you that you... Read more →
Shining a light on Vibrio DNA uptake
by Rachel Diner — Vibrio cholerae is "kind of a big deal" in the bacterial world and a popular topic here on STC. Beyond being the causative agent for the disease cholera, it's a model bacterium for studying horizontal gene transfer and interbacterial competition. A recent study in 'Nature Microbiology' sheds new light (literally) on how this happens. Read more →
Vaccines and the Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance
by Roberto — For the vast majority of the natural history of Homo sapiens, some 200,000 years, the average life expectancy at birth has been around 30 years. What I find most amazing is that as recently as 1900 the world average human life expectancy at birth had remained unchanged. Read more →
On your marks, get set, go!
by Christoph —When did you first hear about the "genetic code"? In high school? Or in college, in an undergraduate course in molecular biology and/or genetics? In either case you were certainly shown the famous codon table that specifies which of the 64 possible triplets in messenger RNA (mRNA) are translated into one of the 20 canonical... Read more →
Mono Lake (A Snippet)
by Elio — Travel down the eastern slope of California's Sierra Nevada and you will run into a number of breathtaking sights. Ranking high among them is Mono Lake, a large shallow lake that sports a collection of strange limestone columns. Protruding some 30 feet above the water surface, these structures, known as chimneys, consist of calcium carbonate... Read more →
How Bacteria on our Skin Might Prevent Skin Cancer
by Jammal Abu-khazneh and Chih-Kai Yang — The skin is the largest organ in the human body and is home to diverse microbial communities. While this may be unsettling for some germophobes, recent work has uncovered potential health benefits from bacteria that are part of our normal skin microbiomes. Read more →