Small Things Considered

Consider Keeping Small Things in Perspective

by Roberto
Our previous post was a bit unusual for STC, the transcription of a talk I had given a few weeks earlier. First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to Christoph who proposed the idea for that post. Let me also elaborate on the ending of that presentation... Read more →

Thinking outside the rod (or coccus)

by Roberto
With kind per­mis­sion by the or­gan­i­zers, we re­pro­duce here an edit­ed tran­script of Ro­ber­to's talk (via live vi­deo) at the meet­ing on 'Ma­jor ideas in quan­ti­ta­tive mi­cro­bi­al phy­sio­lo­gy: Past, Pre­sent and Fu­ture', held in June this year in Køben­havn, Den­mark. Read more →

A rose is rose is a rose is a... roseota?

by Roberto
Give me a chance to quote Gertrude Stein and I'll do so gladly. This time the opportunity was handed to me on a silver platter. On October 2021, almost out of the blue, the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) published a paper with the "names and formal descriptions... Read more →

Retrons Resolved

by Mechas Zambrano
Just like solving a crossword puzzle or a sudoku, it is also greatly gratifying when apparently obscure scientific obser­vations are figured out. There are many examples in microbiology of obser­vations that, though they hint at some biological... Read more →

Summer Vacation

by the STC team
We are taking our customary two week vacation. Do you think we deserve it ? Looking forward to seeing you again on July 4th ! Read more →

Retrospective, January to June 2022

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

Celebrated Women in Microbiology

by Roberto
...This provided the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to dive into the life of this not­ed mi­cro­bio­lo­gist. Alice Evans (1881–1975) made some of most im­port­ant con­tri­bu­tions to mi­cro­bio­lo­gy in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. In 1917 she pre­sent­ed her work show­ing that a bac­te­ri­um found in raw milk – Ba­cil­lus abor­tus, now... Read more →

How to Be a Lichen

by Nastassja Noell
Lichens are symbiotic or­gan­isms – al­gae, fun­gi, cy­ano­bac­te­ria, bac­te­ria and yeasts – that form mi­nia­ture eco­sys­tems that you can hold in the palm of your hand. They live on trees and rocks through­out the South­ern Ap­pa­lach­ians, and are also found in the Arc­tic, the An­tarc­tic, rain­forests, al­pine tun­dra and es­pe­cial­ly in the de­sert. Read more →

...and Many Images of Microbiology

by George A. O’Toole
Roberto Kol­ter, after over 20 years of ser­vice, has de­cid­ed to step away as the co­ver edi­tor at the Jour­nal of Bac­terio­lo­gy (JB), and I want to take this op­port­uni­ty to both thank him and to re­flect. When Ro­ber­to start­ed as co­ver edi­tor, the front of JB... Read more →

A Revisionist History of Science

by Janie
Whether read or listened to, a story is essentially a colorless armature made of words, and it's up to each reader/listener to interpret it, imagine it, and people it with appearances, colors, movements, emotions. The process depends upon the individual's own experiences, since all things present... Read more →