Small Things Considered

Winter Vacation

by the STC team
We take advantage of this being the season for re­joic­ing, and take our customary two week winter va­ca­tion. We return in 2021, on January 4th... Read more →

TWiM 231: It’s a Microbe-Eat-Microbe World

A discussion of a predatory bacterium appropriately named Vampirococcus lugosii, and Elio reveals how bacteria can be used on the International Space Station to efficiently extract rare earth elements in microgravity. Read more →

Retrospective, June to December 2020

by Elio
Here is a list of our posts from the last half year − which felt significantly longer than usual, right? − briefly annotated... Read more →

Alcanivorax, an efficient cleaner of our oceans

by Joseph A. Christie-Oleza and Vinko Zadjelovic
The first image that comes to our mind when we think of the oceans is im­mense bo­dies of clear wa­ters or – in the more 'ro­man­tic' minds – beau­ti­ful tur­quoise wa­ters that caress tro­pi­cal beaches. Such clear waters come as a con­se­quen­ce of the ex­treme lack of nu­trients in these eco­sys­tems. Ne­ver­the­less, the ele­vat­ed pri­ma­ry pro­duction...
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A Whiff of Taxonomy – the genus Psychrobacter

by Christoph
What could be more chill­ing than to de­viate for once from our mot­to to "...em­pha­size the un­usual and the un­ex­pected phe­no­mena" and ta­king a look at a, well, slightly bor­ing group of psy­chro­phil­ic bac­te­ria? The ge­nus Psy­chro­bac­ter − the pre­fix psychro- comes from the an­cient Greek ψυχρός for cold, frozen − con­tains about 40 de­scribed spe­cies of... Read more →

Meselson & Stahl, the Conversation

by Roberto
A few days ago, Christoph sent the rest of us at STC a most uplifting message. A conversation between Matt Meselson and Frank Stahl, describing their "most beautiful experiment," had just premiered in iBiology.org. Read more →

TWiM 230: Ancient bacterial DNA

In this episode of This Week in Microbiology, control of Campylobacter in raw chicken by zinc oxide nanoparticles in packaging material, and Salmonella enterica genomes from a 16th century epidemic in Mexico. Read more →