Small Things Considered

Silly Poem

by Elio  
No matter how hard I try, / I have little use for poetray. / I cannot produce a decent rhyme / At this or any other time. // I do not think it's swell / To say that a tortoise' shell / Has its own eccentric smell. // Or that a graceful otter / of clams is a great spotter... Read more →

In one step from commensal to mutualist (almost), part 1|2

by Christoph  
It is as true as it is, well, bor­ing to keep say­ing that Esch­eri­chia co­li is the best un­der­stood uni­cel­lu­lar or­gan­ism, and the most-stud­ied with ~41,000 tag­ged en­tries in Pub­Med since 1932. But then, every five years or so, comes a sur­prise of what un­ex­pec­ted feats this un­as­sum­ing bac­te­ri­um is cap­able of. Read more →

Talmudic Question #195

Can you imagine if Schrödinger's cat is hiding somewhere – and if yes: where – in microbiology? Read more →

A Women's-History-Month Read: Her Hidden Genius (Book Review)

by Janie  
March is Women's History Month. So, it was perfect timing to read a new historical fiction book on the life and work of a preeminent woman in scientific history, Rosalind Franklin. In Her Hidden Genius, author Marie Benedict sculpts a snapshot rendering of Rosalind Franklin from 1947 to 1958... Read more →

The Phage Treaty

by Roberto  
In 1938, after developing a keen in­ter­est in genes, Max Del­brück ar­rived at Cal­tech set to work on Dro­so­phi­la ge­net­ics with Tho­mas Mor­gan. But, as some­one trained in theo­re­ti­cal phys­ics, the pace of work­ing with fruit flies pro­ved too slow. For­tu­na­te­ly for the his­tory of mo­le­cu­lar bio­logy, Del­brück met... Read more →

The Ugliest of Mushrooms

by Elio  
If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, then, faith and begorra as the Irishmen may say, so does ugliness. It is widely stated in the mycophile literature that the ugliest of mushrooms is one called Pisolithus arhizus (once tinctorius, for reasons I'll explain soon)... Read more →

C. elegans' Microbiome

by Roberto  
Not long after participating in the discovery of mRNA and the triplet code, Sydney Brenner set out to study "how genes might specify the complex structures found in higher organisms." Those are the words in the opening sentence of his 1974 foundational paper, which established the nematode C. elegans... Read more →

Diazomania III ─ Nitrous Oxide, Please Don't Laugh About It

by Roberto  
If you bike a lot, particularly if you race, you learn to always carry along a spare in­ner tube and a CO₂ can­is­ter to help you ra­pid­ly change a flat. So, when I start­ed no­tic­ing emp­ty gas can­ist­ers while rid­ing along a few of the ubi­quit­ous Co­pen­ha­gen bike lanes, the first thing... Read more →

Science Poetry: The Universe in Verse

by Janie  
What do you get when you mix together scientists, poets, musicians, authors, historians, Nobel laureates, comedians, science writers, artists, actors, entrepreneurs, and Grammy winners?... Read more →