Small Things Considered

Summer Vacation

by the STC team — We are taking our customary two week vacation. Do you think we deserve it ? Looking forward to seeing you again on July 5th ! Read more →

Retrospective, January to June 2021

by Elio — We list here our posts from the last half year, briefly annotated. Read more →

A Whiff of Taxonomy – Radiolaria

by Roberto — The men­tion of Radiolaria al­ways brings to mind Ernst Haeckel's as­ton­ish­ing hand-drawn ima­ges, com­piled in his clas­sic plate col­lect­ion Art Forms in Na­ture. I'm always mes­mer­ized by the sym­metry and de­tail of his draw­ings of mi­cros­cop­ic ske­le­tons. Haec­kel's abi­li­ty to com­bine science and art is one as­pect of his re­mark­able career. His life pre­sents... Read more →

Small Animals Considered

by Roberto — When queried about the largest animals (a.k.a. metazoans) on Earth, I venture to guess that most readers will point to the blue whales, those magnificent marine mammals that can reach lengths of up to 30 meters and weigh upwards of 200 metric tons. Read more →

Teachers Corner: Chalks Talks vs PowerPoints

by Elio — Two years ago today, Christopher Waters from Michigan State University posted a preprint in bioRxiv entitled "Rock the Chalk: A five-year comparative analysis of a large microbiology lecture course reveals improved outcomes of chalk-talk compared to PowerPoint." It is a good read... Read more →