Small Things Considered

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 →

Mind the Frame (also on April 1st)

by Christoph
As you may know, STC has been on Twitter since August 2018. Most­ly, we use this plat­form to announce our Mon­day and Thurs­day posts. Oc­ca­sio­nal­ly, we com­ment on tweets that we find inter­est­ing, some­times di­rect­ly or by re-tweet­ing them. Twitter being Twit­ter, not every­thing we re-tweet is... Read more →

A Lasting Memory

by Roberto
Almost forty years ago, I arrived in Boston to begin my job as an assistant professor in the micro department at Harvard Medical School. During my post-doc at Stanford, I had very much hoped to get a call from bacteriology at UC Davis. Instead, I got the call from... Read more →

Silly Poem

by Elio
No matter how hard I try, / I have little use for poetray. / I cannot produce a decent rhyme / At this or any other time. // I do not think it's swell / To say that a tortoise' shell / Has its own eccentric smell. // Or that a graceful otter / of clams is a great spotter... Read more →

The Phage Treaty

by Roberto
In 1938, after developing a keen in­ter­est in genes, Max Del­brück ar­rived at Cal­tech set to work on Dro­so­phi­la ge­net­ics with Tho­mas Mor­gan. But, as some­one trained in theo­re­ti­cal phys­ics, the pace of work­ing with fruit flies pro­ved too slow. For­tu­na­te­ly for the his­tory of mo­le­cu­lar bio­logy, Del­brück met... Read more →

Science Poetry: The Universe in Verse

by Janie
What do you get when you mix together scientists, poets, musicians, authors, historians, Nobel laureates, comedians, science writers, artists, actors, entrepreneurs, and Grammy winners?... Read more →

When it's too cold to grow

by Roberto
I began thinking about the cold weather in Bos­ton while I swam in an open wa­ter com­pe­ti­tion off the coast of Car­ta­ge­na de In­dias in Co­lom­bia's Carib­bean coast last week­end. Then my thoughts drift­ed to bac­te­ria swim­ming in col­der and col­der wa­ters. And then the ques­tion: ... Read more →

Howard Berg, a Grand Master of Microbial Motility (1934─2021)

by guest author Ariane Briegel
Not many scien­tists be­come le­gends, even fewer achieve this sta­tus du­ring their own life­time. How­ever, Howard Berg was cer­tain­ly one of them. He was un­doubt­ed­ly an ex­cep­tion­al scien­tist that in­spired a large co­hort of stu­dents, post­docs, and peers. Read more →

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 →