Small Things Considered

Winter Vacation

We take advantage of this being the season for re­joic­ing, and take our customary two week winter va­ca­tion. When we return in 2019, on January 6th, we will enter the 14th year of Small Things Considered. Read more →

Retrospective, December 2019

by Elio
Here is the list of this blog’s posts from the last half year, lightly (or lightheartedly) annotated. Note the significant number of items by students, postdocs, other faculty. We rejoice in this. Also, we recently asked you (via Twitter) for your opinion of these retrospectives. Some 90% of the respondents said they like them, so they are here to stay. Read more →

Talmudic Question #172

Can you think of a vertebrate other than ruminants that CANNOT be reared under germ-free conditions? Read more →

(More than just) a Whiff of Taxonomy – Saltatorellus ferox

by Christoph
Last summer, I stumbled upon the name «Sal­ta­to­rel­lus» when look­ing at a photo from a pos­ter ses­sion of a mi­cro­bio­lo­gy con­gress. I found that name so char­ming! Stage names of jugg­lers and cir­cus ar­tists who perform audacious jumps and da­ring so­mer­saults came to my mind. And in­deed, the name Sal­ta­to­rel­lus fe­rox was gi­ven to a bac­te­rium... Read more →

From Talmudic Question Musings to Good Reading on the Code

by Roberto
"There are twenty amino acids that oc­cur na­tu­ra­l­ly in pro­teins. Con­si­de­ring the di­ver­si­ty of pro­tein struc­tures and func­tion, do you think that is small or large?" Thus star­ted my most re­cent mu­sings on craf­ting a pos­sible Tal­mu­dic quest­ion... Read more →

TWiM #209: Resuscitating persisters and flagellotrophic phage

The TWiM team reveals how ribosome modification resuscitates bacterial persister cells, and explain how a phage tail fiber protein exploits rotation of flagella to move towards the cell membrane. Read more →

mRNA in E. coli : Not Lost Without Translation

by Roberto
Every now and then, a new fin­ding seems to come out of no­where, great­ly chal­len­ging pri­or ideas. Such might be the case on how we came to gain new know­ledge re­gar­ding the struc­tu­ral or­ga­ni­za­tion of the ba­sic pro­ces­ses of tran­scrip­tion and trans­la­tion in Esche­ri­chia coli. Read more →