Small Things Considered

Viewing the Pulse of Earth, A Vital Sign

by Scott Chimileski and Roberto | Earth has a pulse. And at this time in hu­man his­to­ry, we can see it. In­stead of a heart­beat, Earth's sur­face pul­sa­tes with the ac­ti­vi­ty of tril­lions of or­gan­isms, each part of one, in­ter­con­nec­ted bio­sphere dri­ven by mi­cro­bi­al life. In­stead of beat­ing about once per se­cond, the bio­sphere beats around once a year. From 1997 to 2017,... Read more →

Mueller-Hinton Medium

by the STC team | On June 11th, we were addressed in a tweet by microbiologist Joe Harrison (@JoeHarrison1):"This seems like a timely topic for a blog or an article @ASMicrobiology @STCmicrobeblog. Mueller-Hinton agar is used globally and has standardized the study of #AMR. Before today, I'd never read the story of Jane Hinton @citeblackwomen"... Read more →

Retrospective, January to June 2020

by Elio
Here is the list of the posts from the last half year, briefly annotated. Read more →

Touch-Tone Transcription: A Pathogen's Sense of Touch

by Janie | In a world buzzing with sensory input of all stripes and colors, a bacterium isn't one to miss out on any of the latest surrounding scoop. The sense of touch is not ignored. Mechanical feedback influences how a bacterium might move or stay in place... Read more →

Feel dehydrated? Dig for some water then!

by Christoph | Cyanobacteria of the genus Chro­oco­cci­diop­sis are known to sur­vive harsh en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions, high and low tem­pe­ra­tures, ion­izing ra­dia­tion, and high sa­li­ni­ty. Add re­sist­an­ce to de­hy­dra­tion or, in the ex­treme form, de­sic­ca­tion and you have a se­ri­ous chal­len­ger of Dei­no­coc­cus to the title "champ­ion of re­sil­ience". Like the lat­ter, Chro­oco­cci­diop­sis is ea­si­ly found in the Ata­ca­ma de­sert... Read more →

In Memoriam: Roland Wolkowicz

by Forest Rohwer | In his 14 years at SDSU, Roland studied HIV as well as RNA viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes—how they affect cells and their possible drug treatments. He was known for a remarkable dedication to his students, refusing to step back from teaching even while severely weakened by advanced lung cancer and its treatment. Read more →

The COVID-19 Virus by the Numbers

by Elio | The trio of Yinon Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo, here aug­men­ted by Avi Flam­holz, have done it again. In the past, they pre­sen­ted us the astound­ing num­bers for the dis­tri­bu­tion of bio­mass on this pla­net, no less. We high­light­ed this se­mi­nal con­tri­bu­tion to our un­der­stand­ing of the li­ving world... Read more →

Talmudic Question #177

A twist on Schrödinger’s Cat… In­stead of ra­dio­iso­tope, a Gei­ger coun­ter, a poi­son and a cat, in­side a sealed box with a light and kept at am­bient tem­pe­ra­ture and at­mo­sphe­ric pres­sure, you place a Wi­no­grad­sky co­lumn and a sealed vial... Read more →

Unicellular Capsaspora and animal multicellularity

by Victoria Shabardina | It is common in biolo­gy to look at little things to learn how the big parts work: we study mo­le­cul­es to un­der­stand cells and study or­gans to know how the bo­dy funct­ions. But it is dif­fer­ent with Cap­sa­spo­ra, be­cause it is a whole, a com­plete single-cell or­gan­ism, and it is ac­ti­ve­ly stu­died for elu­ci­dat­ing how... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Cytokines

by Elio | Cytokines are small proteins (~5−20 kDa) that play a large role in our defenses against infection. They stimulate both the innate and the acquired immunity and coordinate the interplay between the two, thus can be properly called immunomodulators. There are lots of them, including interferons, interleukins, tumor necrosis factors, chemokines... Read more →