Small Things Considered

Of Terms in Biology: Colicins, Bacteriocins, Pyocins and Tailocins

by Roberto | This is the tale of the tail, of a phage. Years before Alexander Fleming's chance discovery of penicillin, many scientists were already interested in bacteriolytic activities. Bacteriophages played a big role in the early days of searches for bacterial killers. Read more →

A "Cultural" Renaissance

by Paul Carini | Sometimes, to move ahead, you must take a look at where you have been. Cul­tur­ing mi­cro­bes is a foun­da­tio­nal un­der­pin­ning of mi­cro­bio­lo­gy. Be­fore ge­nome se­quenc­ing, re­searchers spent count­less hours te­dious­ly de­duc­ing the nu­tri­tion­al re­quire­ments of bac­te­ri­al iso­la­tes and tin­ker­ing with me­dium for­mu­la­tions to en­ti­ce new mi­cro­bes in­to cul­ture. This art of cul­ti­va­tion took a back seat to the pow­er­ful mo­le­cu­lar tools of the last 25 years, and as a re­sult, ma­ny re­search­ers have for­got­ten the uti­li­ty of hav­ing a cul­ture in hand. This per­cept­ion is chang­ing, as there is clear­ly a re­newed in­ter­est in iso­la­ting mi­crobes from va­rious en­vi­ron­ments. Here, I sug­gest three focus areas to en­sure con­tin­ued growth and suc­cess of this "cul­tu­ral" re­nais­sance, in­clu­ding (i) set­ting clear cul­ti­va­tion goals, (ii) fund­ing ex­plo­ra­to­ry cul­ti­va­tion, and (iii) cul­tur­ing and stu­dy­ing un­usu­al or­gan­isms. "Un­cul­tur­able" is a frame of mind, not a state of micro­bio­lo­gy; it is time to dust off the bottle of yeast ex­tract. Read more →

Chinese Surnames in Science

by Elio | Names matter a great deal in science, as, ob­vi­ous­ly, they do in all hu­man en­dea­vors. To a sci­en­tist, the name of the au­thor – or the au­thors – of a pub­li­ca­tion is par­ti­cu­lar­ly co­gent since a sci­en­ti­fic dis­co­ve­ry is fre­quent­ly asso­cia­ted with the name or na­mes of the dis­co­ver­er (no­tab­ly, Avo­ga­dro's number, Hal­ley's co­met, Wat­son and Crick DNA struc­ture, etcetera). I should note... Read more →

Geography and Geology

by Elio | When Biology emerged as a mo­dern sci­ence du­ring the Re­nais­san­ce, there was only one kind. By and large, the same people car­ried out field ob­ser­va­tions and ex­pe­ri­ments. In time, this uni­ty of ap­proach got lost, with the "na­tu­ra­lists" and the "ex­pe­ri­men­ta­lists" go­ing their se­pa­ra­te ways. Some­time du­ring the 20th cen­tu­ry,... Read more →

Sydney Brenner (1927–2019)

by Roberto and Elio | On April 5th, the eminent biologist Sydney Bren­ner died aged 92. Du­ring his de­ca­des long scien­ti­fic car­eer, he made a last­ing im­pact on mo­le­cu­lar bio­lo­gy by in­tro­du­cing C. ele­gans, a ti­ny ne­ma­to­de, as mo­del or­gan­ism. But al­ready a couple of years ear­lier, in 1961, he, Fran­cis Crick, and their col­la­bor­a­tors were... Read more →

My Two Years in Copenhagen…

by Elio | My two years in Copenhagen were most li­ke­ly the hap­piest of my li­fe. My then wife and I were there in 1956 to 1958, while on a post­doc­to­ral fel­low­ship in Ole Maaløe's la­bo­ra­to­ry. We had de­ci­ded on this for se­ve­ral rea­sons. In the de­cades af­ter World War II, young Ame­ri­cans where drawn to labs in Eu­ro­pe, part­ly be­cause... Read more →

The Vicissitudes of a Talmudic Question

by Elio | When we try to construct a Talmudic Question, we are con­cerned with the accuracy of the premise and ensuring that an answer has not been previously provided. We were toying with this one: “Bac­terial endosymbionts of insects have reduced genomes but, best we know, they have not exported some of their genes to the host cell nu­cleus (as organelles have)... Read more →

Happy Birthday LTEE!

by Roberto | Come this Sunday, February 24, 2019, all of us at STC will be raising a celebratory glass in honor of the remarkable LTEE, the E. coli long-term evolution experiment, which will be reveling in its 31st birthday. Read more →

Nano Pétanques – A Snippet

by Christoph | "The power of evolution is revealed through the di­ver­si­ty of life." Aha! It was so­lemn­ly de­clar­ed by the No­bel Prize com­mit­tee in their sta­te­ment an­nounc­ing last year's che­mis­try priz­es for "the di­rect­ed evo­lu­tion of en­zymes [and] phage dis­play of pep­tides and anti­bodies". Roy­al aca­de­mies – na­tio­nal or other aca­de­mies like­wise – tend to add luster... Read more →

The Fires of Saint Anthony – A Snippet

by Roberto
Just recently, after giving a very general public lecture on microbes, the discussion went – not surprisingly – in the direction of humans and our relationships to our microbiota. Read more →