Small Things Considered

A Whiff of Taxonomy – Radiolaria

by Roberto | The men­tion of Radiolaria al­ways brings to mind Ernst Haeckel's as­ton­ish­ing hand-drawn ima­ges, com­piled in his clas­sic plate col­lect­ion Art Forms in Na­ture. I'm always mes­mer­ized by the sym­metry and de­tail of his draw­ings of mi­cros­cop­ic ske­le­tons. Haec­kel's abi­li­ty to com­bine science and art is one as­pect of his re­mark­able career. His life pre­sents... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: The Biological Pump

by Roberto | Quick, without much think­ing, what image came to mind when you read "bio­lo­gi­cal pump" in to­day's title? If you are like me, pre­dis­posed to think in cel­lu­lar and mo­le­cu­lar terms, you might have thought of an in­te­gral mem­brane pro­tein that pumps mo­le­cules in­to or out the cell. Per­haps any of... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Alpha, Beta, Gamma Diversities

by Elio
In ecology, these terms refer to various le­vels of species diversities... Read more →

Fungomania III. A Yeast Messes with the Gut Microbiome

by Elio | The microbiome of the large in­test­ine of mam­mals, mainly com­posed of bac­te­ria, is the sub­ject of in­numer­able cur­rent stu­dies. And for good rea­sons. Of all the body's mi­cro­biomes, it is the lar­gest in num­bers, varie­ty, and of like­ly im­port­ance in health and dis­ease. De­fy­ing ex­pect­ations, it is re­mark­ably stable... Read more →

Fungomania I. Fungi Make Flowers

by Elio | Nature seems to be in­tent in fool­ing every­one, ex­per­ienced bo­tan­ists included. An ex­ample is seen in the abi­li­ty of some fungi to change the ter­mi­nal leaves of cer­tain must­ard plants into what look like flo­ral pe­tals, mak­ing them look like real flowers. Polli­nat­ing in­sects are at­tracted to them and land on these struc­tures... Read more →

Antibiotics and the Foods We Eat

by Roberto | When it comes to the ani­mals that hu­mans raise to eat, a quick look at their num­bers proves sober­ing. World­wide, there are some 650 mill­ion pigs, 1 bill­ion heads of cattle and 26 bill­ion chickens. Such numbers ca­not be achieved by tra­di­tio­nal ani­mal rear­ing pract­ices that use ex­ten­sive surface areas. Rather, most of these ani­mals are grown... Read more →

100-Million-Year-Old Seafloor Sediment Bacteria Have Been Resuscitated

by guest author Jennifer Frazer
In 2010, Japanese scientists from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Expedition 329 sailed into the South Pacific Gyre with a giant drill and a big question... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Sympatry and Allopatry

by Elio | Sympatry means that two species coexist in the same physical area, allopatry that they don't. The etymology of the suffix patris, helps. It comes from the Latin for 'fatherland,' as in 'patriot' (or, for those who remember the Marseillaise, "Alons enfants de la Patrie"). Read more →

Our (Previously) Purple Planet

by Gillian Belk | A flying saucer hurtles into our solar system, swings past Mercury and Venus, and comes to rest hovering over Earth, 3.7 billion years ago, deep during the Archean. The aliens peer down and ponder a planet as foreign to them as it would be to us. Read more →

Non-Photosynthetic Bacteria Also Have a Circadian Rhythm

by Elio | The very first entry in this blog, in December 2006, was about the amazing fact that some photosynthetic cyanobacteria have a circadian rhythm. I entitled it "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing." Read more →