Small Things Considered

Of Terms for Biologists: Wanderjahre

by Roberto
Hope you noticed the not-so-subtle twist from our usual "Of Terms in Bio­lo­gy" to "Of Terms for Bio­lo­gists." In­deed, Wan­der­jah­re is cer­tain­ly not a term in bio­lo­gy. It is, how­ever, a term I hope many bio­lo­gists-in-train­ing will em­brace and put into prac­tice. I'll come forth and ad­mit it; for me, it is... Read more →

Staying in Science Past Retirement

by Elio, Linc Sonenshein, and Roberto
As their years in the pro­fes­sion pass, prac­tic­ing sci­en­tists might pon­der on a quest­ion re­gard­ing their fu­ture. When I re­tire, how can I re­main in science? In the Uni­ted Sta­tes man­da­to­ry re­ti­re­ment was abol­ish­ed in 1986. In ma­ny oth­er count­ries, man­da­to­ry re­ti­re­ment still pre­vails. Re­gard­less of wheth­er man­dat­ed or vo­lun­ta­ry, re­ti­re­ment is li­ke­ly to be... Read more →

Bench to Nature, A Call to Molecular Biologists

by Roberto
Along several decades my curio­si­ty drove me from the com­fort of pu­ri­fied en­zym­es to the com­plexi­ty of plant root mi­cro­bi­al com­mu­ni­ties, along the way pas­sing through sta­tio­na­ry phase phy­sio­lo­gy, bio­films, in­ter­spe­cies in­ter­ac­tions, to men­tion but a few. All along, some­where hid­den... Read more →

E. O. Wilson (1929−2021)

by Roberto
The world lost one of its premier de­fenders of bio­di­ver­si­ty and a pio­neer­ing eco­lo­gist and evo­lu­tio­na­ry bio­lo­gist when E. O. Wil­son died on De­cem­ber 26, 2021, at the age of 92. We start the year ho­nor­ing the me­mory... Read more →

Winter Vacation

by the STC team
We take advantage of this being the season for re­joic­ing, and embark on our customary two week winter va­ca­tion. We return in 2022, on January 6th... Read more →

Retrospective, July to December 2021

by Roberto
Continuing with tradition, here is the list of our posts from the last half year, lightly annotated. Read more →

Lost in the Pacific Mangrove Forest Microbiomes

by Mechas Zambrano | One of the perks of being a mi­cro­bio­lo­gist is par­ti­ci­pat­ing in ex­pe­di­tions at re­mote lo­ca­tions to col­lect samp­les for our proj­ects. My most re­cent ex­cur­sion was to the south­ern Pa­ci­fic coast of Co­lom­bia, a far-off re­gion re­plete with man­grove for­ests. The pur­pose was to ob­tain samp­les of the bi­valve Ana­da­ra tu­ber­cu­lo­sa, lo­cal­ly... Read more →

Fine Reading: Thank You, Pseudo-U!

by Roberto | Yesterday, when I walked into the corner pharmacy to receive my COVID-19 vaccine "booster" I once again marveled at this truly remarkable scientific achievement. Less than a year after the sequence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus was made public, the public at large began receiving mRNA vaccines. Read more →

Are We in Danger of Technology (Once Again?)

by Elio | In a world beset by worries about using CRISPR and such technologies for potentially wicked purposes (e.g., cloning potentially dangerous foreign genes into babies' genomes), I am reminded about how such concerns were handled in the beginning of the story, when recombinant DNA technology first emerged. Read more →

Fine Reading: The History of Microbiology

by Elio | In the current issue of Annual Reviews of Microbiology, Roberto has written a piece called History of Microbiology, a Per­sonal Interpretation, that is so outstanding that words nearly fail me. I found it amazing in its depth, breadth, ... Read more →