Small Things Considered

Let's eat! Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus couples predation with replication

by Jacky Lu | Predation in the animal world revolves around the senses. Anglerfish use light to lure in prey, sharks can smell the tiniest drop of blood in the ocean, bats rely on their keen sense of hearing to catch a passing insect. Predators not only have to find their prey, but they must also make the decision to pursue and capture them. Such dynamics between predator and prey exist in the macroscopic world of animals, but do they exist in the microbial world as well? Read more →

A Snippet: Who Invented Agriculture, the Ants or the Bees?

by Elio | Agriculture was invented at the time of the dinosaurs, long before there was anything resembling a primate on earth. Take the example of the leaf cutting ants. For about 50 million years, they have been harvesting plant material, bringing it to their nest, chewing it up, and using the chewate to grow fungi, which is what they eat... Read more →

Kiss and Make Up: Myxococcus xanthus demonstrates bacterial cooperation

by Ada Hagan | If there's a hot topic in microbiology, it's bacterial interaction and communication. Bacteria "talk" to each other using a complex chemical language we are only just beginning to understand. Quorum sensing allows communication between spatially separated cells of similar species. Functioning similarly, bacteriocins warn non-immune bacteria... Read more →

The Attraction of Magnetotactic Bacteria

by Daniel P. Haeusser | Regular readers of Small Things Considered may recall our mention of the magnetotactic bacteria, organisms that can sense the Earth's magnetic field to orient themselves and distinguish up from down. The magnetotactic bacteria vary greatly in morphology, metabolism, and phylogeny, but they all share a little tool that permits the magnetic sensing underlying their coordinated movement (magnetotaxis). Read more →

‘Tis the Season to be Sweating

by Elio | This is the time of the year of increased physical activity when we pay special attention to certain parts of the body, including the armpit. As is usually the case, our microbiota is involved because the odor associated with sweating is produced by microbial activity. The main culprits are skin… Read more →

An Evolutionary Tale of Zombie Ants and Fungal Villains & Knights

by Gemma Reguera | In a recent post I shared with you some amazing things I had learnt about coprophilous (‘dung-loving’) fungi that spit their spores like pros. What I did not tell you then is that my six-year-old son also fell in love with the spitting fungi (dung + spit = child’s interest!)… Read more →

It’s Raining Viruses!

by Merry Youle | It’s true! Each year it rains viruses, more than a trillion of them per acre over thousands of forested acres in the USA. This is the work of the airborne arm of the USDA Forest Service, part of their efforts to reduce the devastation to hardwood forests caused by the imported gypsy moth… Read more →

The Leopard and the Mouse: A Microbiologist's Take

by Fred Neidhardt | Nineteen-year-old photography student Casey Gutteridge captured this extraordinary scene at the Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire, UK. Casey, who was photographing the leopard Sheena for a course project, said: I have no idea where the mouse came from — he just appeared in the enclosure after the keeper had dropped in the meat for the leopard. Read more →

Acoustical Mimicry

by Elio | We seldom stray from microbial domains, but here is a stunning (and delightful) reason for wandering further afield. After all, examples of parasitism are surely not confined to the Small Things and lessons can be learned wherever they appear. According to a group of researchers from England and Italy, parasites of some ants mimic the sounds made by the queen of a colony. The ants in question are... Read more →

Tales From Planet Fungus

by Ilham Naili | It was two years ago that I offered to my sister for her birthday the DVD set of Planet Earth, and I started to watch some episodes with her. A particular episode was memorable for both of us, as we watched an ant being literally possessed by an infecting fungus. Read more →