Small Things Considered

Talmudic Question #197

Why aren’t any Archaea known to make spores? Read more →

"Off with Their (tRNA) Heads"

by Janie
Some bacterial molecules have the social graces of cer­tain 1700s French revolutionaries, or Shakespeare's Richard III, or the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Won­derland – in that all share a penchant for beheading those they encounter! In the microbial case... Read more →

A Message to the Attendees

by Elio
With kind permission by the organizers, we reproduce here Elio's message to the attendees of the meeting on 'Major ideas in quantitative microbial physiology: Past, Present and Future' held in June this year in Køben­havn, Denmark. Read more →

Heavy-duty Traffic, Microscale

by Christoph
Men­tion "fla­gel­la" and we mi­cro­bio­lo­gists in­stant­ly think of these in­gen­ious ap­pe­nda­ges that bac­te­ri­al cells use to pro­pel them­selves through fluids of va­ry­ing vis­co­si­ties (ar­chaea do this, too, with their ar­cha­el­la). We ra­re­ly think of them as an ac­ces­sory to trans­port car­go. Yes "car­go," you read cor­rect­ly, but may­be you re­mem­ber... Read more →

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 →