Small Things Considered

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 →

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 →