Small Things Considered

Pandemic Readings Considered

by Daniel | As we all hunker down in quarantine from the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 and associated COVID19, some may have extra time available, perhaps to pick up a good book. We therefore thought we’d help out by offering a list of suggested pandemic-related readings. Read more →

Talmudic Question #176

Currently, when a bacterial or archaeal genus or species has been well characterized but is yet-uncultured, it is given 'Candidatus' status. Should this practice be continued or is time to abolish it? Why? Read more →

Three to Tango

by Elio | How many symbioses that involve three partners can you think of? Surely, not many. But here is one, involving a pathogenic fungus, a bacterium, and a fungal virus. Read more →

Fine Reading: Guts and Glory, Microbiome Edition

by Janie
Research on the microbiome, particularly the gut microbiome, garners ever-increasing attention from both the scientific and public eye (and the press). But as with most other fads, there’s a need to parse out fact from fiction... Read more →

Processing the Ps in Times of Stress

by Daniel | A decade ago, Fred Neidhardt wrote a tour de force post for our blog on a case of con­ver­gence be­tween bac­te­ri­al phy­sio­lo­gy and vi­ru­lence that fea­tured a re­view by Da­le­broux et al. from Mi­chele Swan­son's lab. The spe­ci­fic to­pic of that con­ver­gence was the role that the nuc­leo­tide gua­no­sine te­tra­phos­phate (ppGpp) plays in the in­tra­cel­lu­lar... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Contagion

by Elio | A much used term nowadays, "con­ta­gi­on" or in ad­jec­tive form, "con­ta­gi­ous," is de­rived from La­tin con­tā­giō (touch­ing, con­tact, con­ta­gi­on) re­la­ted to con­tin­gō (touch clo­se­ly). In its ori­gi­nal mean­ing, the term re­fer­red so­le­ly to a dis­ease trans­mis­sible by di­rect phy­si­cal con­tact. Now­adays, its mean­ing has been broad­ened to in­clude all com­mu­ni­cable or in­fect­ious dis­ea­ses. As the Wi­ki­pe­dia says: "Of­ten the word... Read more →

Proteorhodophytina: Obscure Red Algae Are Keepers of Deep Evolutionary Secrets

by Lukáš Novák | You may be familiar with some red al­gae even with­out rea­liz­ing it, as many spe­cies have pro­found eco­lo­gi­cal, in­dus­tri­al, and cu­li­na­ry im­port­ance! Ma­cro­scopic red al­gae re­pre­sent one third of all sea­weeds grown in aqua­cul­ture world­wide and cre­ate half of the eco­no­mic value ge­ne­ra­ted by this in­dus­try. Among the most com­mon­ly used are spe­cies of the genus Py­ro­pia... Read more →

Fungomania III. Of a Fungus and a Crop

by Roberto | There are literal­ly thousands of fun­gal spe­cies that cause plant dis­eases and their ef­fects on agri­cul­tu­ral crops ends of cost­ing bil­lions of dol­lars eve­ry year. Many of these fun­gal plant pa­tho­gens are fas­ci­na­ting sub­jects for stu­dy. Among the many, I have a per­so­nal "fa­vo­rite." I place the word in quotes be­cause I re­cog­nize the od­di­ty of la­bel­ing a pa­tho­gen... Read more →

Fungomania II. Singing Frogs

by Roberto | Like many others, I am having trouble focusing on work these days. I admit it, I've had dif­fi­cult­ies sit­ting down to write this post; the mind keeps wan­der­ing off, ima­gin­ing the like­ly sce­na­rios of the coming months. After all, we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pan­demic. In an ef­fort to over­come my an­xie­ty, I find so­lace in think­ing that... Read more →

Talmudic Question #175

by Morgan Feeney
Are there any bacterial species that simply never form biofilms/are genetically incapable of doing so? Read more →