In their classical experiments, Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty showed that streptococci in a specific growth phase take up exogenous DNA, resulting in a transformation of their phenotype...
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by Roberto and the STC team | Not long ago, Elio offered some musings "On Old Age." As is often the case when reading Elio's writings, the first couple of sentences already taught me several lessons. For one, I learned a new word, senectitude. I suspect I will be using it more and more with each passing day. But there was more, Elio revealed that his birthday...
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by Elio | Relatively few people are aware the virus that causes Covid19 has its own name, to wit, SARS-CoV-2. Outside the scientific literature, this is seldom used. Yet, almost everyone is aware that the AIDS virus is called HIV. But this is exceptional. The overwhelming number of people call a virus after the disease...
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The TWiM team reviews how variants of P. aeruginosa survive antimicrobial treatment, and a decrease in the antimicrobial resistance of the gut microbiome in the presence of the fungus C. albicans.
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by Daniel | If you haven't had your fill of pandemic related media yet, there is one recent novel that you may want to add to the Spring/Summer reading list. Even if you're tired of hearing about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, The End of October...
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by Elio | Tom Brock (1926 − 2021) can readily be considered the father of extremophile microbiology. He pioneered the study of high temperature-loving microbes, by investigating, in a nearly frolicsome way, the hot springs of Yellowstone Park. He carried out this work pretty much alone, with both experimental ingenuity and conceptual gusto, ...
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by Christoph | You've probably heard of spiders that fly withtout wings. They climb onto flowers or leaves, stand on their tiptoes, and push gossamer threads of silk from their spinnerets, glands in their abdomen, and take off. They do that to reach a nearby twig when weaving their webs or to make long-distance flights, sometimes over...
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by Elio | The microbiome of the large intestine of mammals, mainly composed of bacteria, is the subject of innumerable current studies. And for good reasons. Of all the body's microbiomes, it is the largest in numbers, variety, and of likely importance in health and disease. Defying expectations, it is remarkably stable...
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by Roberto | This is a story about fusaria by an admittedly non-expert. Much of what I write in this post I just recently learned, thus revealing from the start my naïveté on the fascinating subject of fungi as high protein foods.
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The purpose of this blog is to share our appreciation for the width and depth of the microbial activities on this planet. We will emphasize the unusual and the unexpected phenomena for which we have a special fascination... (more)