Small Things Considered

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 →

Risks and benefits of workouts while fasting (part 2)

by Christoph | You may wonder whether the 'oligo­tro­phic growth state' of Ba­cil­lus sub­ti­lis – the sub­ject of part 1 – isn't just the ca­pri­ole of a do­mes­ti­ca­ted bac­te­ri­um in the lab, and not of much re­le­vance "in the wild." But, as you will soon see, it pro­bab­ly is re­le­vant in na­tu­ral set­tings. But first I have to go back... Read more →

Talmudic Question #164

On Earth, L-amino acids in proteins go with D-ribo- or D-de­oxy­ri­bo-nuc­leo­tides. At which point in time during the evo­lu­tion of liv­ing sys­tems was the de­ci­sion made to make use of only one of the enan­tio­mer pairs? Read more →

Risks and benefits of workouts while fasting (part 1)

by Christoph | No intro today, I'm about to make one big leap right into the sub­ject. It's about Ba­cil­lus sub­ti­lis but I will not touch what this mul­ti-ta­len­ted bac­te­ri­um is so well known for: spo­ru­la­tion, bio­film for­ma­tion, mo­ti­li­ty by swim­ming, swarm­ing mo­ti­li­ty, can­ni­ba­lism, and "na­tu­ral com­pe­tence" for DNA up­take (aka trans­for­ma­tion). It's about the re­act­ion of B. sub­ti­lis to food de­pri­va­tion. Read more →

Geography and Geology

by Elio | When Biology emerged as a mo­dern sci­ence du­ring the Re­nais­san­ce, there was only one kind. By and large, the same people car­ried out field ob­ser­va­tions and ex­pe­ri­ments. In time, this uni­ty of ap­proach got lost, with the "na­tu­ra­lists" and the "ex­pe­ri­men­ta­lists" go­ing their se­pa­ra­te ways. Some­time du­ring the 20th cen­tu­ry,... Read more →

The world of small RNAs and regulatory peptides in prokaryotes

by Matthias Gimpel | The natural habitats of most bac­te­ria are cha­rac­te­ri­zed by chan­ging en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions such as fluc­tua­tions in tem­pe­ra­ture, os­mo­la­ri­ty, chan­ging or li­mi­ted nu­trient sup­ply, or the oc­cur­rence of com­pe­ting mi­cro­bes and bac­te­rio­pha­ges. Con­se­quent­ly, fle­xible and ener­gy-ef­fi­cient adap­ta­tion to these chan­ging ex­ter­nal pa­ra­me­ters is the basis for their sur­vi­val. Read more →

Sydney Brenner (1927–2019)

by Roberto and Elio | On April 5th, the eminent biologist Sydney Bren­ner died aged 92. Du­ring his de­ca­des long scien­ti­fic car­eer, he made a last­ing im­pact on mo­le­cu­lar bio­lo­gy by in­tro­du­cing C. ele­gans, a ti­ny ne­ma­to­de, as mo­del or­gan­ism. But al­ready a couple of years ear­lier, in 1961, he, Fran­cis Crick, and their col­la­bor­a­tors were... Read more →

The Complex and Mysterious Red Queen

by Jamie | The Red Queen of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass is a prominent figure among evolutionary biologists. Her line to Alice, "‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place" struck the biologist Leigh Van Valen as an apt metaphor for the need for species to constantly adapt to the changing environment in order to survive. Read more →

My Two Years in Copenhagen…

by Elio | My two years in Copenhagen were most li­ke­ly the hap­piest of my li­fe. My then wife and I were there in 1956 to 1958, while on a post­doc­to­ral fel­low­ship in Ole Maaløe's la­bo­ra­to­ry. We had de­ci­ded on this for se­ve­ral rea­sons. In the de­cades af­ter World War II, young Ame­ri­cans where drawn to labs in Eu­ro­pe, part­ly be­cause... Read more →

The Pyrenoid – Not Your Average Cookie-Cutter Organelle

by Janie Kim
The chloroplast is the chocolate chip cookie of the carbon-fixing, photosynthesizing world: it's a reliable, traditional, well-known staple. Lesser known is the more mysterious shape-shifting organelle called the pyrenoid. Read more →