Small Things Considered

To The Bottom of the Sea

by Elio | Are there instances of water-containing sites on Earth that (pardon the expression) have not yet been metagenomicized? Surely many remain, but their numbers must be dwindling quite rapidly. Read more →

Talmudic Question #157

by Jacob Bobonis
Is there is such a thing as a taxon-characteristic pathway/feature that cannot be transferred in bacteria? Read more →

The Human Story, as Told by Our Genomes

by Jamie | As one of our wiser bloggers put it, "I doubt that STC readers are fo­cus­ed on­ly on mi­cro­bio­lo­gy. They must have other in­terests too." With that in­sight in mind, we're of­fer­ing up our im­pres­sions of a couple of books on­ly tan­gent­ial­ly re­la­ted to mi­cro­bes. In this case, a book de­scr­ibing the in­crea­sing­ly de­tail­ed pic­ture... Read more →

Ancient Microbial DNA: Paleomicrobiology

by Daniel P. Haeusser | As our readers are likely aware, we are holobionts whose functional genetic makeup goes beyond just the human cells. Not surprisingly, investigation of ancient microbial DNA (paleomicrobiology) can also help scientists understand human history and evolution. Read more →

Fast Is Good...

by Michael Schmidt | Every now and then you read a paper and think to yourself, this might transform patient care. Such was the case when I read a paper suggested to me by one of our faithful TWiM (This Week in Microbiology) listeners, Dr. Volkan Ozenci of the Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. The paper, Antibiotic susceptibility... Read more →

Of Mountains and Microbes…

by David Lipson | Thanks, Elio – this is a fascinating post. The silica cycle indeed deserves respect, and it is probably responsible for major planetary events, such as driving the evolution of C4 photosynthesis in land plants since the formation of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau helped drive down CO₂ levels to their low, pre-industrial levels. Some... Read more →

Snacking on thistles (second bite)

by Christoph | For the thistle tortoise beet­le, Cas­si­da ru­bi­gi­no­sa, bit­ing once into its pre­fer­red food is not enough, it tak­es a se­cond bite. So, 80 years af­ter the first de­scrip­tion of a bac­te­ri­al sym­biont in C. ru­bi­gi­no­sa by H.-J. Stam­mer, Hassan Salem and his col­lea­gues took up the thread and stu­di­ed the sym­biont to more... Read more →

Snacking on thistles (first bite)

by Christoph | Way back in 1936, the zoologist H.-J. Stammer published a study of various beetles of the Cassidinae family (order Co­le­o­ptera) and their microbial symbionts. Among them was the thistle tortoise beetle, Cas­sida rubiginosa, an obligate foliovore, or put another way, a dedicated ve­gan with a penchant for thistles (Cirsium sp.). Thistles were a pest for far­mers in the pre-Roundup™ age, and some... Read more →

More Respect For the Silicon Cycle, Please

by Elio | Silicon is the second most abundant element within Earth’s crust and is necessary for the livelihood of protists, plants, and animals. Maybe best known, silica (SiO₂ or opal) is used by marine organisms such as diatoms and rhizarians to build their glassy and often beautiful shells. Read more →

Occasionally, Microbiologists use Macroscopes...

by Christoph | If you'd ask people around you which hand tool cha­rac­te­ri­zes a pro­fes­sio­nal mi­cro­bio­lo­gist, they would pro­bab­ly come up with the m­icro­sco­pe. Much like ham­mer and saw would be named as ty­pi­cal car­pen­ter tools, or the plough as ty­pi­cal for far­mers ('ham­mer and sickle' is a si­mi­lar case, yet not the point here). The light mi­cro­scope... Read more →