Small Things Considered

Biocrusts

by Mechas  
Have you ever heard of biocrusts? If not, you are not alone. I only stumbled upon this term recently and was surprised to find that it represents a growing field of research on what appear to be fragile, surface soil communities that are just the opposite. Biocrusts are incredibly resilient to inhospitable conditions. Read more →

Go FISHing to Image Bacterial Communities

by Davide Ciccarese  
Bacterial communities live in a small world where cells fill any available micron. Depending on their location and surrounding environment, they can readily respond to changes by gearing up their gene repertoire to insure their position in a densely packed biofilm. To be able to visualize this... Read more →

Talmudic Question #206

by Roberto  
Two recent events prompt me to post this (double) Talmudic Question(s). First, I had a lot of thoughts inspired by Christoph's Monday post on stop codons being recognized by charged tRNAs in a trypanosomatid: "Stops making sense." How bizarre can non-canonical codes get? Second, I was reading posts from the past. Read more →

Stops Making Sense

by Christoph  
One of the most con­vinc­ing ar­guments for a com­mon ori­gin of all known life forms on this pla­net is that they all use the same ge­net­ic code. In my un­der­stand­ing, the ar­gu­ment is strength­en­ed, per­haps some­what coun­te‑­in­tuiti­ve­ly, by the nu­mer­ous find­ings that and how ma­ny life forms mo­di­fy the ca­no­ni­cal ge­net­ic code in ways that suit them... Read more →

Updating Horizontal Gene Transfer

by Mechas and Roberto  
We recently prepared a lecture that included a brief discussion of bacterial evolution. Of course, we covered horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which we consider a key pillar in the evolutionary process. We dutifully began our presentation by listing, perforce: transformation, conjugation, and transduction. Read more →

Finding the actual needle in a virtual haystack

by Christoph  
...by glo­bal se­quenc­ing of en­vi­ron­men­tal DNA (eDNA) col­lect­ed from a sam­pling site and its ta­xo­nom­ic clas­si­fi­ca­tion and quan­ti­fi­ca­tion by bio­in­for­matics. When an­a­lyz­ing such vo­lu­min­ous da­ta­sets, ope­ra­tion­al ta­xo­nom­ic units (OTUs) often pop up that cor­res­pond to known ta­xa/spe­cies never found at the samp­ling site − the to­pic that brought you here − in ad­di­tion to...  Read more →

AvL, Taste, and the Discovery of Bacteria

by Roberto  
Before approaching matters of taste, I'll explain AvL. To many of our readers, the meaning of the acronym will be immediately apparent. But to others, perhaps those newer to microbiology, it may have no meaning at all. AvL is short for Antonie van Leeuwenhoek... Read more →

TWiM 291: Biogeography of tectonics and teeth

TWiM explains how photoferrotrophic bacteria initiated plate tectonics over 2500 million years ago, and how two bacteria work together to cause childhood tooth decay. Read more →

A miniature piñata

by Christoph  
Can you imagine a chil­dren's par­ty in Me­xi­co with­out a piñata as the main at­trac­tion? One of the kids hits the sus­pend­ed piñata with a stick un­til it bursts and the en­tire con­tents, usu­al­ly sweets, splat­ters on­to those stand­ing around wait­ing ex­pec­tant­ly. Micro­bio­lo­gists sometimes throw a party, too, though... Read more →

Protein Synthesis – A Molecular Happening

by Roberto  
More than fifty years ago, towards the end of Spring term in May 1971, university campuses across the U.S. were rife with protests over the Vietnam war. Students skipped classes and left labs to participate in marches and sit-ins. In addition, the memory of Woodstock (August 1969) was still fresh in everyone's mind. Read more →