Small Things Considered

On the Source of the Black Death

by Roberto  
Yersinia pestis. How immediate our reaction can be to the species name of this bacterium, making us conjure up images of pestilence. As its discoverer, Alexander Yersin, wrote in 1894 of an outbreak of bubonic plague in Hong Kong, this is the "bacille de la peste." (Working independently, Kitasato Shibasaburo also characterized the plague bacterium at nearly the exact same time.) Read more →

An antibiotic honeycomb

by Manuel Sánchez  
Atomic force mi­cros­co­py (AFM) is one of the most pow­er­ful tools in stu­dy­ing the sur­fac­es of any ma­ter­ial. So it should come as no sur­prise that it has been used in the stu­dy of vi­ral en­vel­op­es and bio­lo­gi­cal mem­branes. One of its great ad­van­tages... Read more →

In the Company of Bacteria: Amoebae

by Christoph  
In times long past, highly evolved eu­karyotes, for ex­ample bio­chemists, oc­ca­sio­nal­ly quip­ped that bac­ter­ia were noth­ing more than a bag of en­zymes. Well, from the per­spec­tive of bac­ter­ia, one could easi­ly re­turn the com­pli­ment: eu­kar­y­o­tes, for ex­ample single-cel­led amoe­bae, are little more than a... Read more →

Evolution-Proofing Antibiotics

by Vilhelmiina Haavisto  
Since the dis­co­ve­ry of pe­ni­cil­lin and its de­vel­op­ment in­to a the­ra­peu­tic agent, an­ti­bio­tics have re­vo­lu­tion­ized me­di­cine and saved count­less lives. How­ever, the way we use these life-sav­ing me­di­cat­ions is fun­da­men­tal­ly un­sus­tain­able as pa­tho­gens ra­pid­ly evolve re­sist­ance, ren­der­ing ma­ny se­ri­ous in­fect­ions ef­fect­ive­ly un­treat­able. Read more →

The Hunger Games

by Elio  
I am not usually drawn to start out an ar­ticle by con­si­der­ing a bac­te­ri­um's name, but when con­front­ed with Ag­gre­ga­ti­bac­ter ac­ti­no­my­ce­tem­co­mit­ans, I had to take a pause. A well-tra­vel­ed Gram-negative coc­co­ba­cil­lus, this car­rier of such a con­vo­lut­ed mo­ni­ker start­ed life simp­ly as an Ac­ti­no­ba­cil­lus... Read more →

Fine Reading: Evolution of Pathogen Tolerance

by Roberto  
While reading a review yesterday, I recalled a conversation I had with a student nearly forty years ago. He did not appear interested in the subject of my lectures – bacterial genetics and physiology – so I was curious to know the reasons why. Read more →

Typhus Vaccines

by Roberto  
As a U.S. citizen living abroad, I often get queried about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Why do so many people refuse the vaccine? Let me put it bluntly: I do not understand it. Read more →

Fine Reading: Did You Know That Algae Can Be Pathogens?

by Elio  
Not all of us, me in­clud­ed, are ful­ly aware that the al­gae in­clude pa­tho­gens of many ver­te­bra­tes, such as hu­mans and do­mes­ti­cat­ed ani­mals. The most im­port­ant ones are Pro­to­the­ca bo­vis (once P. zopfii) and P. wicker­hamii. A fine over­view of this sub­ject by Shave, Mill­yard and May from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bir­ming­ham, UK, has been... Read more →

Bacterial Symbionts Halt The Disease Burden of Dengue Virus

by Rupinder Kaur, Sarah R. Bordenstein, and Seth R. Bordenstein  
Amidst a global surge and focus on COVID-19 infections, other diseases that have had and will continue to have impact on hu­man health cannot be forgotten. Dengue, for example, continues to be a major mosquito-borne viral infection, impacting more than 100 million people per year. Dengue can inflict... Read more →

Having the bow and arrow might not be enough...

by Natália C. Drebes Dörr | Daily challenges in the life of mi­cro­sco­pic or­gan­isms are not that dif­fer­ent from those ex­per­ienc­ed by chee­tahs and ga­zel­les in the sa­van­nas. Bac­te­ria are usu­al­ly em­bed­ded in com­mu­ni­ties where they need to ac­tive­ly com­pete for food and space. Also, they are often under the at­tack of vo­ra­cious pre­dators such as bac­te­rio­pha­ges and pro­tists, which they fight... Read more →