Small Things Considered

@NAChristakis on COVID-19 and Immunity

by the STC team | We came across a long thread on Twitter these days that out­lines rea­lis­tic per­spec­tiv­es for a way through and out of the pan­demic. The au­thor, Ni­cho­las A. Chris­takis (@NAChris­takis), a so­cio­lo­gist and phy­si­cian who con­ducts re­search in the areas of so­cial net­works and bio­so­cial sci­ence at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, kind­ly gran­ted us per­mis­sion to re-blog... Read more →

Teachers Corner: Who bears the load?

by Roberto | First, let me comment on the title I wrote. It should have read, what bears the load? Better yet, what part of the bacterial cell envelope is the load-bearing component? Whenever I taught bacterial cell biology I always started by describing the components of cell envelope, cytoplasmic membrane, cell wall and, in the Gram-negatives, the outer membrane. Read more →

A Bacterial Protein Takes on "Birds of a Feather Flock Together"

by Janie | For a bacterium, stick­ing onto things is the go-to way to play it safe. The abi­li­ty of bac­te­ria to ad­here to sur­faces is a ma­jor boon to their sur­vi­val, en­abling them to co­lo­ni­ze and form com­mu­ni­ties in di­verse en­vi­ron­ments rang­ing from deep sea vents to steel pi­ping to ani­mals' teeth. In ma­ny in­stan­ces, stick­ing on­to sur­faces... Read more →

Trichoplax & Company II.

by Christoph | When searching the metagenomes ob­tain­ed from single Tri­cho­plax H2 in­di­vi­du­als for 16S and 18S rRNA-spe­ci­fic se­quen­ces, Gru­ber-Vo­dic­ka et al. found, next to the pre­va­lent Tri­cho­plax and Grel­lia se­quen­ces a third se­quen­ce at high fre­quen­cy that mat­ched well with known 16S rRNA se­quen­ces from the Ma­ri­na­mar­gu­lis­bac­te­ria (ZB3), a branch with­in the phy­lum Mar­gu­lis­bac­te­ria... Read more →

Trichoplax & Company I.

by Christoph | Take a few thousand small eu­kar­yo­tic cells, al­low for a few dif­fe­rent cell types, and sea­son the cells ge­ne­rous­ly with en­do­sym­bionts (no, not mi­to­chon­dria, they al­ready have these!). Let the cells self-or­ga­ni­ze into a pat­ty – or a po­ta­to chip, if you're more in­to a ve­gan life­style – with a dia­me­ter of ap­pro­xi­ma­te­ly 0.5–1.0 mm, and a mere 25 µm thick. Read more →

Stay Away, Stay Away – There Is Danger Ahead

by Elio | In ancient times, persons suffering from a dreaded disease believed to be contagious, such as leprosy, were given a bell to ring and thus noisily announce their presence. Healthy people could then move away and try to avoid contact.  Amazingly, bacteria use an analogous strategy. Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: The Exome

by Elio | An exome is the collection of exons, the sequences within the primary mRNA transcripts of an organism that are eventually used for making proteins. The rest, non-coding sequences, called introns, are removed by RNA splicing. (Note that there is no ‘introme,’ at least not yet.)   Read more →

How to Swim Through Goo: Lessons from a Microbial Menagerie

by Janie | One of my favorite childhood book/TV se­ries was The Ma­gic School Bus, which fol­lows quir­ky sci­ence tea­cher Ms. Frizzle and her class in their ma­gic school bus as they go on field trips to outer space, through the food chain, or in­side the hu­man bo­dy. I espe­cial­ly liked the epi­sode in which the class shrinks down to the mi­cro­sco­pic le­vel... Read more →

A Whiff of Taxonomy – Saltatorellus ferox, again...

by Christoph | In a follow-up of the pre­vi­ous post on Sal­ta­to­rel­lus fe­rox, and its un­usual way of cell di­vi­sion and cel­lu­lar move­ment, I'm going to take a clo­ser look here at its chro­mo­so­me rep­li­ca­tion and se­gre­ga­tion. Read more →

(More than just) a Whiff of Taxonomy – Saltatorellus ferox

by Christoph | Last summer, I stumbled upon the name «Sal­ta­to­rel­lus» when look­ing at a photo from a pos­ter ses­sion of a mi­cro­bio­lo­gy con­gress. I found that name so char­ming! Stage names of jugg­lers and cir­cus ar­tists who perform audacious jumps and da­ring so­mer­saults came to my mind. And in­deed, the name Sal­ta­to­rel­lus fe­rox was gi­ven to a bac­te­rium... Read more →