Small Things Considered

Symbiosis

by Elio et al. | For as long as I can re­mem­ber, I have been fas­ci­na­ted by the sub­ject of sym­bio­sis. This is one of the grand themes in bio­lo­gy, what Mar­ga­ret McFall-Ngai has apt­ly called 'the ele­phant in the room', de­serv­ing much love and at­tent­ion. But ex­act­ly, what is it that is so fas­ci­na­ting about it? Read more →

"May I ask you a question?"

by Elio | My first lecture (in 1958, long ago) was to medical students and the subject was DNA. I felt privileged to be given the task to talk about this subject, which was born in its modern incarnation not many years earlier. Read more →

Small (and Large) Numbers Considered

by Roberto | It can be both fun and instructive to play with numbers that give us some sense of the microbial world. Consider, if you will, some of the following examples… Read more →

The Secrets of Ancient Beer

by Gillian Belk
With the Octoktoberfest themed beers flowing all season, it seemed only appropriate to have a post about the marvels of this delightful frothy beverage Read more →

Vaccines and the Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance

by Roberto | For the vast majority of the natural history of Homo sa­piens, some 200,000 years, the average life expectancy at birth has been around 30 years. What I find most amazing is that as recently as 1900 the world average human life expectancy at birth had remained unchanged. Read more →

From the Classroom

Dr. Melanie Armstrong, of Western Colorado University, got a message, which reminded us of our Talmudic Questions... Read more →

The Truth Is In The Outcome

by Elio | Coprolites - fossil feces - are nothing short of a marvel. A message from the past, they divulge important information about what their makers lived on as well as on how they lived Read more →

Apuleius's Ass

STC bloggers | Elio: I am toying with an idea for a TQ but don't want to make an ass of myself (again, see TQ #155!). It has to do with the mechanism of genome reduction in endosymbionts. I find that little has been said on how it comes about, but most of the inference is that it's due to... Read more →

How to Build a Giant Winogradsky Column

by Scott Chimileski | In part one of my tour of the Microbial Life exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH), I wrote that the microscopy station and the live bacterial colonies are my personal favorites. Actually, those are my second and third favorites. I was saving my "most favorite" exhibit for its very own post: a giant-sized, living and changing Winogradsky column. Read more →

The Microbial Life Exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History

by Scott Chimileski | In late 2015, I wrote an STC post about plans for a microbial exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. That article, Bringing the Microbial World into Our Natural History Museums, and another written at ASM.org in 2016, Age of the Microzoo, describe the background and motivation behind the exhibition. Now, I am pleased to share with the STC audience... Read more →