Small Things Considered

Fungomania II. Singing Frogs

by Roberto | Like many others, I am having trouble focusing on work these days. I admit it, I've had dif­fi­cult­ies sit­ting down to write this post; the mind keeps wan­der­ing off, ima­gin­ing the like­ly sce­na­rios of the coming months. After all, we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pan­demic. In an ef­fort to over­come my an­xie­ty, I find so­lace in think­ing that... Read more →

Life After CPR

by Mechas Zambrano and Roberto | For most English speakers, CPR would be assumed to stand for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, oftentimes a real life saver. But for many readers of this blog, the acronym has a whole different meaning. For the last few years, CPR, has stood for the "Candidate Phyla Radiation." The discovery of the CPR superphylum was (and remains) one of the most remarkable developments in our growing realization that the genetic diversity of the microbial world is unimaginably vast. Read more →

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Ocean

by Roberto | Plasmids, autonomously replicating extrachromosomal elements, have long been recognized as important HGT agents. A striking early example of this was the discovery – some sixty years ago – of the very rapid and efficient plasmid-mediated transfer of multiple antibiotic resistance genes in clinical settings. Read more →

(More than just) a Whiff of Taxonomy – Saltatorellus ferox

by Christoph | Last summer, I stumbled upon the name «Sal­ta­to­rel­lus» when look­ing at a photo from a pos­ter ses­sion of a mi­cro­bio­lo­gy con­gress. I found that name so char­ming! Stage names of jugg­lers and cir­cus ar­tists who perform audacious jumps and da­ring so­mer­saults came to my mind. And in­deed, the name Sal­ta­to­rel­lus fe­rox was gi­ven to a bac­te­rium... Read more →

Outer Membrane Vesicles and Biopearling – A Snippet

by Elio | When I started out in microbiology some 70 years ago, bacte­ria were just little balls or sausage-shaped rods, and, if you were of a fancy mindset, corkscrew-like structures. Some were endowed with flagella or capsules, but not much else. Their surface area was limited to what you could see under an optical microscope. Read more →

A Shuttle Service for Phosphate

by Christoph | It's amazing, again and again, to see elec­tron mi­cro­scop­ic ima­ges of or­der­ly chains of elec­tron-dense, mem­bra­ne-en­closed mag­ne­ti­te crys­tals with­in bac­te­ri­al cells that turn their car­riers in­to ti­ny com­pass need­les. So, it's no sur­prise that here at STC, Elio, Gem­ma, and Da­niel had been at­trac­ted by mag­ne­to­tac­tic bac­te­ria (MTBs) ear­lier. Now we team­ed up with Vi­vien­ne Bail­lie Ger­rit­sen from Pro­tein Spot­light,... Read more →

How Do Tardigrades Withstand Drying?

by Elio | Recently, tardigrades or wa­ter bears made the news be­cause they had been loa­ded on a space cap­sule hea­ded for the moon. Alas, the space­craft crashed on its way down and the fate of the ti­ny pas­sen­gers is un­known. This gives us a rea­son for re­vi­si­ting these fas­ci­na­ting crea­tures and to bring the topic up to date. Read more →

A Microbial Liver

by Elio
Best I can tell, the marine flatworms Paracatenula suggest a novel twist on symbiosis. Here, symbiotic bacteria do not just provide carbon compounds for their host but actually store them. And they do that also for energy... Read more →

Making Mycorrhrizae. A Snippet.

by Elio | Very high on the list of this world's vital sym­bio­ses are the my­cor­rhi­zae, the as­so­ci­a­tion of fun­gal fi­la­ments with plant root­lets. About 90% of all vas­cu­lar plants (from ferns on up) pos­sess them. They con­tri­bute great­ly to the health of the plants, being a ma­jor source of ni­tro­gen, salts, and water... Read more →

The Complex Anatomy and Physiology of the Gut of Wood-feeding Beetles. A Snippet.

by Elio | The digestive system of animals can be wondrously complex. Think of our own, which consists of such diverse organs as the mouth, the esophagus, stomach, the small and large intestines, and the anus. Each one is responsible for a particular set of functions. Is such a division of labor also seen in "simpler" animals? This question was asked recently of wood-feeding beetles by a group of no less than 18 investigators from all over the US. Read more →