Small Things Considered

Diazomania II ─ Trichodesmium

by Roberto  
When it comes to ex­pan­sive oli­go­tro­phic en­vi­ron­ments re­plete with mi­cro­bi­al life, the sur­faces of Earth's oceans are hard to beat. There­in, most of the pri­ma­ry pro­duct­ion comes from a rich di­ver­si­ty of pho­to­syn­the­tic mi­crobes. There's plen­ty of light and carbon dioxide, so growth is there­fore li­mit­ed by some­thing else. Read more →

Talmudic Question #194

Imagine that some life forms in other planets resemble Bacteria or Archaea. Would you guess that they are most like the Gram positives, the Gram negatives or the Archaea? Read more →

Diazomania I ─ A Bird's-Eye View of the Nitrogen Cycle

by Roberto  
Here's a good way to get friends or re­la­tiv­es in­ter­est­ed in mi­cro­bio­lo­gy – if they aren't al­ready. Tell them to take a deep breath and to let it out. Then ask them these ques­tions: "Mostly, what went into your lungs?", and "What hap­pened to it while in your lungs?" Re­gard­less of... Read more →

When it's too cold to grow

by Roberto  
I began thinking about the cold weather in Bos­ton while I swam in an open wa­ter com­pe­ti­tion off the coast of Car­ta­ge­na de In­dias in Co­lom­bia's Carib­bean coast last week­end. Then my thoughts drift­ed to bac­te­ria swim­ming in col­der and col­der wa­ters. And then the ques­tion: ... Read more →

Book Review: Finding the Mother Tree

by Janie  
Behind the scenes, underground, fungal networks are essential to the wellbeing of forests. Trees symbiotically associate with mycorrhizal fungi, exchanging plant-produced sugars for fungus-gathered soil nutrients and water. It's an intimate arrangement: the fungal cells thread between... Read more →

A New Model for the Formation of an Endodontic Biofilm

by Elio and Roberto  
As we speak, biofilms are the rage in microbiology. And why not, being that most bacteria in nature are not free-swimming but are attached to some surface. Model systems for biofilms are therefore sorely needed. Researchers from two institutions in Bogotá, Colombia... Read more →

Book Review: Life's Edge

by Janie  
Ask biologists what they study and the answers will quickly home in on living things, on particular lifeforms that they've spent countless hours thinking, scrutinizing, analyzing, and toiling over. Yet one further question – what exactly is a living thing? – is a sure-fire ticket to hesitation... Read more →

Howard Berg, a Grand Master of Microbial Motility (1934─2021)

by guest author Ariane Briegel  
Not many scien­tists be­come le­gends, even fewer achieve this sta­tus du­ring their own life­time. How­ever, Howard Berg was cer­tain­ly one of them. He was un­doubt­ed­ly an ex­cep­tion­al scien­tist that in­spired a large co­hort of stu­dents, post­docs, and peers. Read more →