by Janie
For a very long time, symbiogenesis was scoffed at as a fringe science. This mindset plagued the field from the get-go in the 1880s, when the botanist Andreas Franz Wilhem Schimper first put forth the idea that eukaryotic organelles might be bacterial, to the turn of the century, which saw the first key paper on symbiogenesis...
Read more →
Eukaryogenesis: Questions in Questions in Questions
Honey Bee Social Immunity
by Roberto
Flying insects are key to the functioning of many ecosystems, where they play numerous important roles such as pollination. Thus, the sharp decline in their numbers is cause for great concern. From a human perspective, the observed demise of many honey bee (Apis mellifera) populations is particularly troubling because of their critical role in the food chain.
Read more →
Phage as Hitchhiker
by Roberto
When I started graduate school at UCSD in the mid-1970s, I sometimes found myself hitchhiking at dawn along the Pacific Coast from Solana Beach to the lab. There were some wild rides! Which is probably why some years later, as they crossed my path, I was attracted both to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and (in biology) to the evolutionary and ecological concepts of hitchhiking.
Read more →
The Chemical Ecology of Colibactin
by Roberto
Microbial genotoxic compounds – molecules that damage DNA – are found aplenty in nature. Doxorubicin and bleomycin come to mind; powerful DNA damaging agents developed as anti-cancer therapeutics but whose extreme toxicity is part of what makes some cancer chemotherapies arduous and risky.
Read more →
Pictures Considered #59: Inside a Choanoflagellate
by Roberto
Choanoflagellates (endearingly referred to as "choanos") are the closest living relative of animals and as such they can provide insights into the evolution of animal multicellularity. Interestingly, at least two choano developmental features are induced by bacterial products.
Read more →
Gene Transfer in the Ocean
by Mechas
When it comes to generating variability in genes and functions, microbes are at the top of the list. Much of their genome plasticity and capacity to adapt to changing environments is driven by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the acquisition of genetic information from other cells rather than from vertical inheritance upon division.
Read more →
Sensing Blue Light: From Bacteria to Birds
by Mechas
That many birds migrate over long distances is a well-known fact. But reading the book "World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds" by Scott Weidensaul proved to be a true eye-opener. I also learned a fact that really stuck with me.
Read more →
An Eau de Microbe for Every Memory
by Janie
It is terpenes like geosmin and many other molecules of microbial make that imbue so much of the world with scents. Commercial perfumes, too, are principally scented by terpenes and their derivatives and other molecules that are aromatic (aromatic both in the sense of...
Read more →
Infectious Enthusiasm for Preserving Our Microbes
by Mechas and Roberto
When it comes to microbes, the public still perceives them largely as the cause of infections. This worldview goes back to the latter half of the nineteenth century with the seminal findings of Pasteur and Koch. During the past few decades this predominant view changed towards a recognition of microbes' largely beneficial roles, but the pandemic appears to have slowed down this learning process.
Read more →
Safeguarding Beetle Development
by Mechas and Roberto
This is the story of how pursuing a century-old observation led to the recent discovery the chemical ecology involved in protecting a beetle from fungal infection during larval molting. It shall come as no surprise that we would be thrilled by such a story; throughout the lifetime of the blog, we've had posts on insect-microbe symbioses...
Read more →