Small Things Considered

Dental Care for Your Pet: For Their Health and Yours

by Meaghan O’Neill
Ever since the domestication of wolves, humans have probably remarked upon the particularly bad breath that our dog companions frequently display. Medieval illuminated bestiaries speculated that the strong odor from a wolf’s mouth could betray his presence to prey – like a flock of sheep – causing the wolf to its make approach from downwind. Read more →

Let's make some more tyrosine, together! (2|2)

by Christoph
Figure 2 in the Anbutsu et al. pa­per is so stuf­fed with in­for­ma­tion about the wee­vils' Nar­do­nel­la en­do­sym­biont ge­no­mes that I bet­ter tear it a little apart to show you that it is ac­tu­al­ly pos­sible to ob­ser­ve ge­no­me re­ducti­on 'at work'. As said in part 1, the ge­no­mes are ti­ny (0.2‒0.23 Mb) and con­tain... Read more →

Talmudic Question #161

by Elio
Can you imagine a way in which the micro­bio­me is directly in­volved in human in­telli­gence and/or con­scious­ness?
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Let's make some more tyrosine, together! (1|2)

by Christoph
Surprisingly, it is not particu­lar­ly dif­fi­cult to per­suade the yeast S. ce­re­vi­si­ae to ac­cept E. co­li bac­te­ria as 'room­mates', that is, as sub­sti­tu­te for de­fec­ti­ve mi­to­chon­dria (see Elio's recent blog). As 'hous­ing me­di­a­tor' you have to pro­vide the pro­spec­ti­ve room­mate with a de­fense against the host's SNARE sys­tem, 'dis­able' both part­ners by en­gin­eering... Read more →

How is Light Made? – A Snippet

by Elio
Ever since as children we saw fireflies emitting light at night, we ranked luminescence high in excitement of natural phenomena. We learned later that other kinds of living things, such as bacteria, protists, fungi, insects, and many others, are also capable of emitting light. Read more →

Sensing Quorum Backwards

by Elio
Obvious in the establishment and progress in bacterial patho­genesis is that the inoculum, the number of bacteria entering their host at one time, must be of an effective size. Depending on the infectivity of the species, this can vary from a single bacterium to millions of them. Read more →

Phage Therapy – an Update

by Elio
Has there ever been a more perplexing topic in microbiology than phage therapy? Well, that of probiotics comes close. Both have an over 100-year history, both have proponents as well as detractors, both have seen major investments in research and commercialization. Read more →

Go Ahead, Prove that Eukaryotic Cells Arose Via Endosymbiosis

by Elio
Say you want to prove once and for all the endosymbiotic theory of the origin of eukaryotic cells, substantiating that a cell (according to many, an archaeon) acquired a bacterium that eventually morphed into a mitochondrion.
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