Small Things Considered

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 →

Turdopoiesis

by Elio | When it comes to consistency, we are somewhere between cows and goats. I am talking of course about the texture of our feces, which in health are neither runny nor very hard. When it comes to the speed of evacuation, we are also in-between: we poop at about 2 centimeters per second, elephants at 6 cm/sec and dogs at 1 cm/sec. Read more →

Secondary Metabolites

by Andy Bodnar, Michelle Prieto, and Carleen Villarreal | The war between bac­te­ria and pha­ges has been wa­ging for eons lon­ger than hu­mans have ex­ist­ed. Con­sequent­ly, ma­ny bacte­ria have de­ve­loped no­vel and unique ways for de­fen­ding them­selves against these fo­reign in­va­ders. Some change their sur­face pro­teins to pre­vent de­tec­tion, like chang­ing a lock on a door. Others give their own lives, ini­tia­ting... Read more →

Talmudic Question #165

Describe the properties of a yet-to-arise new DOMAIN of life. Read more →

Prokaryotic Pointillism: When a Sea Sponge Endosymbiont Paints the Bigger Picture

by Janie
A while ago, I read a piece from Catapult Magazine that mused about the strangeness of eating fish. The article asked, why do we so willingly eat creatures that come from a place so poorly understood? 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 →

Extracellular Electron Transfer (EET) Goes Mainstream

by Kevin Blake | Of all the strange ways that bacteria can make a living, mineral respiration ranks among the strangest. Perhaps it’s my anthropomorphic worldview, but the idea of “breathing” solid rock (“No, they’re minerals!” Breaking Bad’s Hank Schrader would shout) seems completely absurd. Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Moonlighting

by Christoph
The Cambridge Dictionary defines "moon­light­ing" as: the act of work­ing at an ex­tra job, es­pe­ci­al­ly with­out tel­ling your main em­ploy­er. (Far) off the job mar­ket, "moon­light­ing pro­teins" are single po­ly­pep­ti­de chains that per­form mul­ti­ple bio­che­mi­cal or bio­phy­si­cal func­tions in ar­chae­al, bac­te­ri­al, and eu­kar­yo­tic cells. Read more →

Distributed virusing?

by Jamie | Viruses are very creative genetic entities. Their supersonic mutation rates (compared to ours) have allowed them to explore a wide range of possibilities in genome structure. Thus, while all cellular life has double-stranded DNA genomes, with options limited to circular or linear chromosomes, viruses are represented by just about every type of genome imaginable. Read more →

The Story of Free Use GFP (fuGFP)

by Nick Coleman and Mark Sommerville | It is per­haps iro­nic that for a sto­ry about open-source sci­ence, the tale of Free Use GFP (fuGFP) be­gins with a com­mer­cial col­la­bo­ra­tion. The Co­le­man lab was con­trac­ted by a small in­dus­try part­ner to de­ve­lop green fluo­res­cent bac­te­ria for qua­li­ty con­trol ap­pli­ca­tions. We plan­ned ini­tial­ly to use su­per­fol­der GFP (sfGFP) for this job, since ... Read more →