Small Things Considered

Genome with the Wind...

by Jaime E. Zlamal | When there is geogra­phi­cal se­pa­ra­tion, we can an­ti­ci­pate ge­ne­tic dif­fe­ren­ces. That's ex­act­ly what a team led by Kon­stan­tin Se­ve­ri­nov ex­pec­ted to find when they set out to stu­dy geo­gra­phi­cal­ly dist­ant po­pu­la­tions of Ther­mus bac­te­ria. Af­ter all, these mi­cro­bes ge­ne­ral­ly live in hot springs at tem­pe­ra­tures around 160 de­grees Fah­ren­heit (~70° C). How­ever, despite... Read more →

Turdopoiesis

by Elio | When it comes to consistency, we are somewhere between cows and goats. I am talking of course about the texture of our feces, which in health are neither runny nor very hard. When it comes to the speed of evacuation, we are also in-between: we poop at about 2 centimeters per second, elephants at 6 cm/sec and dogs at 1 cm/sec. Read more →

Prokaryotic Pointillism: When a Sea Sponge Endosymbiont Paints the Bigger Picture

by Janie
A while ago, I read a piece from Catapult Magazine that mused about the strangeness of eating fish. The article asked, why do we so willingly eat creatures that come from a place so poorly understood? Read more →

Geography and Geology

by Elio | When Biology emerged as a mo­dern sci­ence du­ring the Re­nais­san­ce, there was only one kind. By and large, the same people car­ried out field ob­ser­va­tions and ex­pe­ri­ments. In time, this uni­ty of ap­proach got lost, with the "na­tu­ra­lists" and the "ex­pe­ri­men­ta­lists" go­ing their se­pa­ra­te ways. Some­time du­ring the 20th cen­tu­ry,... Read more →

Fungomania 1. Who's The Biggest?

by Elio
Anyone can freely claim bragging rights for their favorite topic, but with caution. In this light, the assertion that a mushroom growing in either Michigan or Oregon is both the largest and oldest living thing is questionable. Read more →

Happy Birthday LTEE!

by Roberto | Come this Sunday, February 24, 2019, all of us at STC will be raising a celebratory glass in honor of the remarkable LTEE, the E. coli long-term evolution experiment, which will be reveling in its 31st birthday. Read more →

Rounding up the Honey Bees (2)

by Christoph | Glyphosate is a competitive in­hi­bi­tor of the shi­ki­ma­te path­way that mi­cro­bes and plants use for the syn­the­sis of three aro­ma­tic ami­no acids (Trp,Phe,Tyr) and their de­ri­va­ti­ves. In E. co­li, for­ma­tion of EPSP from S3P and PEP is ca­ta­lyzed by the AroA en­zyme (EPSPS=EPSP syn­tha­se). Gly­pho­sa­te com­petes with PEP for bind­ing to EPSP syn­tha­se in a con­cen­tra­tion-de­pen­dent... Read more →

Rounding up the Honey Bees (1)

by Christoph | Why would I deviate here from STC's habit to rather not  feature the new­est re­sults of tren­dy re­search to­pics? The rea­son comes hid­den in a short no­tice in Science  by War­ren Corn­wall: "...The new re­search is cer­tain to make a con­tro­ver­sial her­bi­ci­de even more of a flash­point." He re­fer­red, of course, to a re­cent pa­per pub­lish­ed in PNAS... Read more →

State of the World's Fungi

by Roberto | We want to bring to your attention an outstanding new report on fungi from the Kew Royal Botanic Garden. It makes for great reading and clearly points out the many roles that fungi play on the functioning of Earth's biosphere. Read more →

Needles in a Metagenomic Haystack:Hunting for Molecular Plastic-Chewers

by Janie Kim | Science and speculative fiction works may warn of im­mi­nent threats like hostile extraterrestrial beings or the artificial general intelligence of the technological singularity. But the more humdrum overabundance of plastic waste, an issue closer to home and our every­day lives, is just as deserving of fear. Read more →