by Roberto
Rumor has it that the combination of yogurt and honey is the "food of the gods." I can't vouch for that since I have not had the chance to query the gods about their diets. Yet just the other day, while enjoying artisanal Greek-style yogurt topped with local raw honey, I closed my eyes and was immediately transported...
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A Short History of Yogurt
Talmudic Question #182
Difficult as it may be to predict which agent will cause the next pandemic, which *single* measure would you recommend should be taken now to mitigate its future effects?
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Underground Highways
by Roberto
This photograph, taken from our book Life at the Edge of Sight, shows a network of almost invisible fungal filaments which, like miniature highways, wind their way around peaks and form bridges over valleys all within a minute amount of soil.
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An Enlightening Evening to Remember
by David Westenberg
Each summer, the Microbial Diversity course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA is the place for exploring the incredible beauty and diversity of the microbial world.
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Of Terms in Biology: Trans-Translation
by Janie, Christoph and John McCutcheon
This could become a very short explainer of the term "trans-translation", as given by Vioque and de la Cruz in their minireview:"Trans-translation is a process found in all bacteria, which contributes to the release of ribosomes that are stalled through a variety of causes, for example when the 3' end of a truncated mRNA lacking a stop codon...
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A Whiff of Taxonomy – The Apicomplexa
by Elio
The phylum Apicomplexa encompasses a large number of obligate intracellular parasitic protists, including the Plasmodium of malaria, toxoplasma, cryptosporidium, coccidia, and many others.
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TWiM 229: Dirt is not simple
The hidden biochemical diversity in soil-dwelling Actinobacteria that could lead to a second Golden Era of antibiotic discovery, and structures of glideosome components reveals the mechanism of gliding in apicomplexan parasites.
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Putting Life on Earth in Perspective
by Roberto
Last week I was very fortunate. I had the opportunity to focus my attention on putting life on Earth in perspective. It was a welcome respite considering these trying times. Almost one year ago, thanks to Nassos Typas, I received an invitation to speak on microbial diversity at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg...
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Teachers Corner: material collections we recommend
by Christoph
We at STC are happy to take care of the interests of teachers. We most often do this by choosing and treating topics in our articles in a way that is suitable for teaching (check our category "Teachers Corner".) Today we would like to draw the attention of the teachers among you to collections of materials...
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Having the bow and arrow might not be enough...
by Natália C. Drebes Dörr
Daily challenges in the life of microscopic organisms are not that different from those experienced by cheetahs and gazelles in the savannas. Bacteria are usually embedded in communities where they need to actively compete for food and space. Also, they are often under the attack of voracious predators such as bacteriophages and protists, which they fight...
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