Small Things Considered

Sulfur disproportionation is exergonic in the vicinity of marine hydrothermal vents

by Elio
Now that’s a title of a paper for you. I confess, it baffled me. At a minimum, I had to look up "disproportionation". What is it? Also known as "dismutation", this refers to a redox reaction in which a compound that is partly oxidized converts to two compounds... Read more →

A Message to the Attendees

by Elio
With kind permission by the organizers, we reproduce here Elio's message to the attendees of the meeting on 'Major ideas in quantitative microbial physiology: Past, Present and Future' held in June this year in Køben­havn, Denmark. Read more →

Consider Keeping Small Things in Perspective

by Roberto
Our previous post was a bit unusual for STC, the transcription of a talk I had given a few weeks earlier. First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to Christoph who proposed the idea for that post. Let me also elaborate on the ending of that presentation... Read more →

A rose is rose is a rose is a... roseota?

by Roberto
Give me a chance to quote Gertrude Stein and I'll do so gladly. This time the opportunity was handed to me on a silver platter. On October 2021, almost out of the blue, the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) published a paper with the "names and formal descriptions... Read more →

Summer Vacation

by the STC team
We are taking our customary two week vacation. Do you think we deserve it ? Looking forward to seeing you again on July 4th ! Read more →

Retrospective, January to June 2022

by Christoph
Keeping with tradition, here is a lightly annotated list of our forty-five posts from the last half year. Read more →

Celebrated Women in Microbiology

by Roberto
...This provided the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to dive into the life of this not­ed mi­cro­bio­lo­gist. Alice Evans (1881–1975) made some of most im­port­ant con­tri­bu­tions to mi­cro­bio­lo­gy in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. In 1917 she pre­sent­ed her work show­ing that a bac­te­ri­um found in raw milk – Ba­cil­lus abor­tus, now... Read more →

...and Many Images of Microbiology

by George A. O’Toole
Roberto Kol­ter, after over 20 years of ser­vice, has de­cid­ed to step away as the co­ver edi­tor at the Jour­nal of Bac­terio­lo­gy (JB), and I want to take this op­port­uni­ty to both thank him and to re­flect. When Ro­ber­to start­ed as co­ver edi­tor, the front of JB... Read more →

A Revisionist History of Science

by Janie
Whether read or listened to, a story is essentially a colorless armature made of words, and it's up to each reader/listener to interpret it, imagine it, and people it with appearances, colors, movements, emotions. The process depends upon the individual's own experiences, since all things present... Read more →

An Exceptional Vintage

by Roberto
I had a dream. I believe it was greatly influenc­ed by a pa­per I read re­cent­ly. It de­scribes the fun­gal po­pu­la­tions and the me­ta­bo­lo­mics of Cor­vi­na grapes (Vi­tis vi­ni­fe­ra L. cv. Cor­vi­na). For those of you not deep­ly steep­ed in wine­mak­ing, Cor­vi­na grapes serve as the staple for... Read more →