Small Things Considered

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 →

How E. coli Rose to Prominence

by Roberto | I could not help it, I had to include the word "rose" in the title of this post. The rea­son? I was dri­ven to do so in­spired by a re­mark­able bit of in­ves­ti­ga­tive re­port­ing by Me­mo Berk­men and Paul Riggs pos­ted in STC in 2016. Therein they de­scribe their he­roic – even if failed – at­tempts at de­ter­min­ing how E. coli K-12 got its name... Read more →

Cathy Squires (1941−2021)

by Roberto | Microbiologists around the world lost a won­der­ful col­lea­gue when Cathy Squires died this past Au­gust. For Elio and for my­self, this was also the loss of a friend. For many de­ca­des, our lives were con­nec­ted in spe­cial and some­times un­ex­pec­ted ways. A na­tive Californian, Cathy ob­tain­ed her BA and MS in Bac­te­rio­lo­gy at UC Davis, where... Read more →

Kimchi-Making and Microbiology

by Janie | Kimchi-making is a matter of tossing cabbage leaves and spices into special containers, followed by a trust exercise with lactic acid bacteria like Lactobacillus and Leuconostoc. But when it comes to preparing South Korea's national dish, there are myriad modi operandi and many subtleties even within those... Read more →

Goodbye Sandcastle, Hello Microbial Bio-Brick

by Janie | The foundation of much of modern civilization? Sand, actually. It's a key ingredient of concrete, and to construct any building you need a lot of it. It has to be sand from oceans, beaches, riverbeds, deltas, lakes. All that desert sand made slippery-smooth by wind erosion won't do... Read more →

Farewell San Francisco Sourdough?

by Roberto | Back in 1980, when I was a post-doc in the San Francisco Bay Area, I began to develop a taste for what I considered a truly unique bread: San Francisco sourdough. There was a certain mystique to it, everyone familiar with it claimed there was nothing like it anywhere else... Read more →

On Stories and Science, Plus Fish

by Janie | It's probably fair to say that people, when afraid, turn to stories and to science for solace. The last year and a half has solidified that: the yarns spun range from conspiracy theories to escapist novels that transport the reader far, far away from bleaker realities (The Midnight Library phenomenon, anyone?)... Read more →