Small Things Considered

Molecular Fossils of Microbial Interactions

by Einat Segev  
Microbes have inhabited our planet for many millions of years. While thriving and dying in almost every niche on Earth, microbes leave behind relics, and some of these relics remain preserved in the geological record. Many cell components are rapidly degraded and do not persist but remains that do are like archives of ancient microbial life. Read more →

The Who-Ate-Whom of Terms in Biology: Virovory

by Christoph  
Like with the cus­to­ma­ry New Year's Eve fire­works, eve­ry year we bio­lo­gists are blessed with hi­ther­to un­known or lar­ge­ly un­com­mon sci­en­ti­fic terms. Some stick, others blaze away like said fire­works. How would you guess the term "vi­ro­vo­ry," which was ad­ded to Wi­ki­pe­dia on 29 Decem­ber 2022, will fare? Read more →

In the Company of Bacteria: Amoebae

by Christoph  
In times long past, highly evolved eu­karyotes, for ex­ample bio­chemists, oc­ca­sio­nal­ly quip­ped that bac­ter­ia were noth­ing more than a bag of en­zymes. Well, from the per­spec­tive of bac­ter­ia, one could easi­ly re­turn the com­pli­ment: eu­kar­y­o­tes, for ex­ample single-cel­led amoe­bae, are little more than a... Read more →

Is Pseudomonas aeruginosa ubiquitous?

by Roberto
Going back several decades I tried to argue that, contrary to po­pular belief, Pseudomonas aeruginosa is not a ubiquitous bac­terium. This was based on our difficulties in obtaining strains from pristine environments, conversations with many colleagues de­scribing similar experiences, and... Read more →

Ice Ice Maybe

by Janie  
The ability to trigger ice formation is a property shared by certain particles both organic and inorganic, including bacteria, viruses, phytoplankton, pollen, soot, dust. These little particles help water molecules come together and form ice at warmer temperatures than freezing point... Read more →

Green Sloths and Robots

by Roberto
... in the case of red par­rot feath­ers the pig­ment has the ad­ded be­ne­fit of pro­tect­ing the plu­mage from bac­te­ri­al de­gra­da­tion. To­day I stay on the to­pic of ani­mal co­lor­a­tion by de­scrib­ing the pe­culi­ar pe­lage pig­ment of sloths. Exact­ly what con­sti­tutes an eye-catch­ing color is, of course, in the eye of the be­holder. Read more →

Psittacofulvin: Polly's Peculiar Plumage Pigment

by Janie  
In macro-fauna, eye-catching colors typically serve two purposes: to woo potential mates, or to signal that the creature is not a snack and will in fact poison you. This is where parrots diverge – and get embroiled in connections to micro­biology... Read more →

Thinking outside the rod (or coccus)

by Roberto  
With kind per­mis­sion by the or­gan­i­zers, we re­pro­duce here an edit­ed tran­script of Ro­ber­to's talk (via live vi­deo) at the meet­ing on 'Ma­jor ideas in quan­ti­ta­tive mi­cro­bi­al phy­sio­lo­gy: Past, Pre­sent and Fu­ture', held in June this year in Køben­havn, Den­mark. Read more →

Magnificently long : Thiomargarita magnifica

by Christoph
Microbiologists study mi­crobes with mi­cro­scopes be­cause they are not vis­ible to the na­ked eye. Un­less they are. This was ex­act­ly the case for "Can­di­da­tus Thio­mar­ga­ri­ta mag­ni­fi­ca", de­scribed in a re­cent Bio­Rχiv pre­print by Vol­lard et al. (2022): "A cen­ti­me­ter-long bac­te­ri­um with DNA com­part..." (more about the se­cond part of the title... Read more →

Bacterial Range Expansion

by Davide Ciccarese  
This image I cap­tured of a re­sult of mine re­minds me of how im­port­ant it is to keep one's mind open and let the re­sults speak for them­selves, even after mak­ing a mis­take. As part of my re­search I was con­duct­ing du­ring my PhD with Da­vid John­son and Dani Or, I was in­ter­est­ed in study­ing... Read more →