Small Things Considered

The Hitchhiker's Guide to... Flagellar Tips

by Christoph  
The same frontispiece twice within a few days at STC? No, not quite. It's not about Roberto's hitchhiking phage this time, or the flagellated bacterium, or the hitchhiking spore, but about the tip of the flagellum (black, left). Disclosure: already back in 2020, I talked with Alise, who created the image, and three other passionate science illustrators... Read more →

The Chemical Ecology of Colibactin

by Roberto   
Microbial genotoxic compounds – molecules that damage DNA – are found aplenty in nature. Doxorubicin and bleomycin come to mind; powerful DNA damaging agents developed as anti-cancer therapeutics but whose extreme toxicity is part of what makes some cancer chemotherapies arduous and risky. Read more →

Gene Transfer in the Ocean

by Mechas  
When it comes to generating variability in genes and functions, microbes are at the top of the list. Much of their genome plasticity and capacity to adapt to changing environments is driven by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the acquisition of genetic information from other cells rather than from vertical inheritance upon division. Read more →

What is a Biomarker? A Snippet

by Elio
Most likely, we have all run into the term "bio­mar­ker," no? So, what is a bio­mar­ker? In 1998, the NIH Bio­mar­kers De­fi­ni­tions Work­ing Group de­fined a bio­mar­ker as "a cha­rac­ter­is­tic that is ob­ject­ive­ly mea­sured and eval­uat­ed as an in­di­ca­tor of nor­mal bio­lo­gi­cal pro­cesses,... Read more →

Sensing Blue Light: From Bacteria to Birds

by Mechas  
That many birds migrate over long distances is a well-known fact. But reading the book "World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds" by Scott Weidensaul proved to be a true eye-opener. I also learned a fact that really stuck with me. Read more →

A two-part resurrection tale (2|2)

by Christoph  
In continuation of the first part of the tale: what is the "re­sur­rec­tion" in the title about? A bit of nos­tal­gia, as I will "re­sur­rect" a sto­ry that is based on re­search from ~30 years ago (and to­day main­ly known by de­di­cat­ed plas­mid spe­cial­ists, if at all). A simple but vex­ing quest­ion bothered... Read more →

A two-part resurrection tale (1|2)

by Christoph  
Besides a resurrection tale that I'll re­late to in the se­cond part, this post will be about an­ti-de­fense sys­tems of plas­mids as an in­trin­sic part of the seem­ing­ly end­less arms race bet­ween con­ju­ga­tive ele­ments and their hosts. Still, I am not in­clined to act as war cor­res­pon­dent, and cer­tain­ly not at a time... Read more →

An Eau de Microbe for Every Memory

by Janie  
It is terpenes like geosmin and many other molecules of microbial make that imbue so much of the world with scents. Commercial perfumes, too, are principally scented by terpenes and their derivatives and other molecules that are aromatic (aromatic both in the sense of... Read more →

Borgs in Archaea

by Mechas  
Microbes never cease to surprise, as should be evident to long-time STC readers. Now we are presented with a novel mechanism that allows archaea to expand their gene content and metabolic capacity. This unforeseen discovery also illustrates the importance not only of having the right tools (and funding) but also of being prepared to find the unexpected. Read more →

In Pieces: The Segmented Genome

by Janie  
"Segmented genome" is a term I had only heard ap­plied to vi­rus­es un­til re­cent­ly. It re­fers to genomes that con­sist of two or more mo­le­cules, a cha­rac­ter­is­tic that grants an evo­lu­tion­ary ad­van­tage: when mul­tiple vi­rus­es in­fect the same un­for­tu­nate cell, these dif­ferent frag­ments can be mixed and mat­ched to ge­ner­ate new, re­as­sort­ed genomes. Read more →