Small Things Considered

Infectious Enthusiasm for Preserving Our Microbes

by Mechas and Roberto  
When it comes to microbes, the public still perceives them largely as the cause of infections. This worldview goes back to the latter half of the nineteenth century with the seminal findings of Pasteur and Koch. During the past few decades this predominant view changed towards a recognition of microbes' largely beneficial roles, but the pandemic appears to have slowed down this learning process. Read more →

A New Look and Other Changes

by Roberto  
What were you doing seventeen years ago, in 2006? I have a tough time recalling my own actions then, but I sure can tell you what Elio did that year. With his energy, enthusiasm, and relentless itch for writing (along with support from ASM, namely Chris Condayan) he gave birth to this blog. Read more →

Christopher T. Walsh (1944–2023)

by Roberto  
Last week, my enthusiastic feelings for the beginning of the new year were greatly dampened when I received the news of Chris Walsh's untimely death, the consequence of a fall. Many of us fortunate enough to have known and interacted with him for many years are still processing... Read more →

Winter Vacation

We take advantage of this being the season for re­joic­ing, and em­bark on a three-week win­ter vaca­tion. When we re­turn in 2023, on Ja­nua­ry 16th, we will en­ter the 17th year of Small Things Con­sider­ed. Read more →

Retrospective, July to December 2022

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

Applied Molecular Microbiology at Dubrovnik

by Roberto 
If you are interest­ed in any sub­ject re­lated to small mo­le­cule na­tur­al pro­ducts of mi­cro­bi­al ori­gin, the "John In­nes/Rud­jer Boš­ko­vić Sum­mer School in Ap­plied Mo­le­cu­lar Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy" is for you. I know that course name is a mouth­ful so when I am de­scrib­ing the school to mi­cro­bio­lo­gists, I re­fer to it simp­ly as... Read more →

Scientific Publishing – eLife's Reviewed Preprints

by Roberto 
Just over five years ago, George O'Toole and I had a con­ver­sa­tion about sci­en­ti­fic pub­lish­ing which we posted at STC. After some harsh com­ments cri­tiqu­ing for-pro­fit sci­en­ti­fic pub­lish­ers, jour­nal im­pact fac­tors, and pre­da­to­ry jour­nals, we turned to think­ing about so­lu­tions. George in­di­cat­ed some guard­ed... Read more →

No Title [ just a very brief rant ]

by Christoph  
We "em­pha­size the un­usual and the un­ex­pec­ted phe­no­me­na for which we have a spe­cial fas­ci­na­tion." And in fact, there are so many ex­cit­ing troves in the re­cent sci­en­ti­fic li­te­ra­ture ─ and in the ol­der no less! ─ that we could ea­si­ly blog three times a week... at least. But there are, occasionally,... Read more →

Microbes Warming Up to Climate Change

by Mechas Zambrano 
A week of unusually warm weather for November in Boston, MA, and an online presentation on the perils of climate change have triggered my inner alarm in anticipation of troubles to come. We are well within the epoch recognized by some as the "Anthro­po­cene," in which humans have... Read more →

Winogradsky Rothko

by Christoph
Winogradsky ─ you right­ly ex­pect the name of Ser­gei Wi­no­grad­sky (1856–1953) to come up oc­ca­sion­al­ly in a blog that Con­sid­ers Small Things. But Roth­ko ? One of the lu­mi­na­r­ies of post-WWII abstract ex­pres­sion­ism in the US, the Lat­vi­an‑Ame­ri­can pain­ter Mark Roth­ko (1903─1970) is best known for... Read more →