Small Things Considered

Retrospective, December 2019

by Elio | Here is the list of this blog’s posts from the last half year, lightly (or lightheartedly) annotated. Note the significant number of items by students, postdocs, other faculty. We rejoice in this. Also, we recently asked you (via Twitter) for your opinion of these retrospectives. Some 90% of the respondents said they like them, so they are here to stay. Read more →

Talmudic Question #172

Can you think of a vertebrate other than ruminants that CANNOT be reared under germ-free conditions? Read more →

(More than just) a Whiff of Taxonomy – Saltatorellus ferox

by Christoph | Last summer, I stumbled upon the name «Sal­ta­to­rel­lus» when look­ing at a photo from a pos­ter ses­sion of a mi­cro­bio­lo­gy con­gress. I found that name so char­ming! Stage names of jugg­lers and cir­cus ar­tists who perform audacious jumps and da­ring so­mer­saults came to my mind. And in­deed, the name Sal­ta­to­rel­lus fe­rox was gi­ven to a bac­te­rium... Read more →

From Talmudic Question Musings to Good Reading on the Code

by Roberto | "There are twenty amino acids that oc­cur na­tu­ra­l­ly in pro­teins. Con­si­de­ring the di­ver­si­ty of pro­tein struc­tures and func­tion, do you think that is small or large?" Thus star­ted my most re­cent mu­sings on craf­ting a pos­sible Tal­mu­dic quest­ion... Read more →

TWiM #209: Resuscitating persisters and flagellotrophic phage

The TWiM team reveals how ribosome modification resuscitates bacterial persister cells, and explain how a phage tail fiber protein exploits rotation of flagella to move towards the cell membrane. Read more →

mRNA in E. coli : Not Lost Without Translation

by Roberto | Every now and then, a new fin­ding seems to come out of no­where, great­ly chal­len­ging pri­or ideas. Such might be the case on how we came to gain new know­ledge re­gar­ding the struc­tu­ral or­ga­ni­za­tion of the ba­sic pro­ces­ses of tran­scrip­tion and trans­la­tion in Esche­ri­chia coli. Read more →

Happy Thirteenth Birthday Small Things Considered!

by Elio and Roberto | This coming Sunday, December 1st, we'll be celebrating the thirteenth birthday of STC. Now a teenager! The blog has matured to over 1300 posts, two per week with virtually no interruptions. This is something that makes us very happy. When we think about it, if we were to print all those posts on standard letter size paper... Read more →

Forbearance with the Escherichia coli Nucleoid

by Conrad Woldringh | Adding to the enormous existing literature, the Dekker group recently produced two articles using their ability to visualize a ring-like nucleoid and to study its properties and dynamics during rest and replication. How did they obtain such a ring-like structures? They reasoned that the normal rod-shaped E. coli cell was too thin to allow direct clear visualization of its nucleoid. Read more →

Talmudic Question #171

by Ellie Arrington
Why are Gammaproteobacteria the weeds of microbial communities? Read more →

A sprinkle of acid a day keeps the law enforcement away

by Aleks Prochera | Imagine you look like someone dangerous, a criminal, an enemy. Despite being an exemplary citizen, you have to deal with the possibility that, at one point or another, you might get in trouble with law enforcement simply because you appear threatening. That's a struggle that many bacterial members of a plant's microbiome face. Read more →