by Elio — From bacteria on up, all the way to the cells of our bodies, most cells divide by binary fission. That is, the process initiates at midcell, usually by constriction, and proceeds until the two resultant daughter cells become separated. Most often, these two sister cells are identical in size and shape. Boring. Enter Bacillus subtilis... Read more →
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Talmudic Question #187
by Raymond Cox — Why does Brevibacterium grow so slowly? Read more →
The Riddle of Life
by Daniel — Book Review: How Molecular Forces and Rotating Planets Create Life: The Emergence and Evolution of Prokaryotic Cells by Jan Spitzer Read more →
TWiM 241: What Does Flu Do to Your Poo?
How Vibrio biofilms are dispersed by polyamine signals, and the induction of inappetence by respiratory virus infection which causes alteration of the gut microbiome. Read more →
Names, New and Strange – A Snippet
by Elio — Are you baffled by the advent of so many new species of bacteria, most carrying unusual names? Let me throw a few at you: Adlercreutzia equolifaciens subsp. celatus, Bacillus velezensis, Buttiauxella agrestis, Cupriavidus basilensis, Curtobacterium... Read more →
Color is in the Eye of the Bacteria-Beholder
by Janie — Pigmentation is a straightforward coloration: the color is the same from every viewing angle. In contrast, structural coloration is in the eye of the beholder: the colors are dependent on the viewing angle... Read more →
Of Terms in Biology: The Biological Pump
by Roberto — Quick, without much thinking, what image came to mind when you read "biological pump" in today's title? If you are like me, predisposed to think in cellular and molecular terms, you might have thought of an integral membrane protein that pumps molecules into or out the cell. Perhaps any of... Read more →
Prokaryotic Organelles. Yes, There Are Such Things.
by Elio — One of the venerable distinctions between eukaryotes and prokaryotes used to be that prokaryotes do not have organelles. This distinction has now gone by the wayside because bacteria and archaea have been shown to possess protein bound structures that can appropriately be called organelles. Read more →
Pictures Considered #52 : 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘺𝘤𝘦𝘴 stacks Z-rings...
by Christoph — 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘺𝘤𝘦𝘴 stacks Z-rings... into ladders inside its aerial/sporogenic hyphae. If this sentence strikes you as a barrage of jargon or just gibberish, don't despair, help is coming. First, enjoy the "light show" in the 20‑second video clip on the right side. It runs in loop, so you can follow more than... Read more →
All the World Is Not E. coli
by Elio — like most people interested in bacterial physiology, I spent much of my life with the nearly religious persuasion that the starting condition for studying growth is when cells and their constituents all increase in unison. In practice, such "balanced growth" is achieved when bacteria grow exponentially at low concentrations... Read more →