Small Things Considered

Winter Vacation

by the STC team  
We take advantage of this being the season for re­joic­ing, and embark on our customary two week winter va­ca­tion. We return in 2022, on January 6th... Read more →

Retrospective, July to December 2021

by Roberto  
Continuing with tradition, here is the list of our posts from the last half year, lightly annotated. Read more →

Grant's Anatomy

by Christoph  
At an EMBO workshop in Copen­ha­gen in 2006 on 'Cell cycle and cy­to­ske­le­tal ele­ments in bac­te­ria,' I was al­most un­able to stay put in my seat dur­ing one pre­sen­ta­tion: Grant Jen­sen showed the 3D-mon­tage of cryoET ima­ges of mag­ne­to­somes in Mag­ne­to­spi­ril­lum mag­ne­to­tac­ti­cum. It was a vi­su­al jour­ney in­to and through the in­ter­ior of a cell,... Read more →

First the Fire, Then the Fungus

by Roberto  
Fire is a fun­da­men­tal eco­lo­gi­cal pro­cess. Through­out the his­tor­y of life on Earth, fire has been a re­gu­latory force that great­ly in­flu­en­ces eco­sys­tem func­tion and evo­lu­tion. Its ef­fects are not felt gra­du­al­ly but rather through pe­ri­od­ic, sud­den, and ca­tas­troph­ic ef­fects on po­pu­la­tion siz­es, com­mu­ni­ty com­po­si­tion, and nu­trient cyc­ling... Read more →

Pictures Considered #56 : A Pinch of Salt

by Christoph  
Micro­bio­lo­gists deal with salt, sodi­um chlo­ride, all the time. Most growth me­dia for our cher­ished re­search con­tain at least "a pinch of salt." Or we need salt as a com­po­nent of buf­fers for bio­che­mi­cal ex­pe­ri­ments that re­quire de­fined con­cen­tra­tions of Na⁺ and Cl⁻ ions. How­ever, we usu­al­ly on­ly see crys­talline salt when we take... Read more →