Small Things Considered

The Cake-Cutting Problem in the Archaeal World

by Kanika Khanna | Have you ever wondered how to slice a cake in equal pro­por­tions for a large party? Hugo Stein­haus, a fa­mous Polish ma­the­ma­ti­cian in­tro­duced a ma­the­ma­ti­cal way to deal with the fair cake-cut­ting prob­lem af­ter the se­cond world war. He pos­sib­ly used cakes as an ab­stract re­pre­sen­ta­tion of the li­mit­ed... Read more →

Getting to grips with the intangible

by Christoph | Imagine the E. coli nucleoid as a swig but of of a high­ly vis­cous tan­gle of a 2 nm thin and ~1.5 mm long DNA poly­mer, de­co­rat­ed with and high­ly com­pact­ed by a ple­tho­ra of pro­teins, and some­how sus­pend­ed in the cy­to­plasm of a cell with a vol­ume of ~1.3 µm³. It's vir­tu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble to "grip" the nu­cleoid, to mea­sure... Read more →

Sticking together «...wie Pech und Schwefel»

by Alexander Loy (@LoyTeam)
Hey geomicrobiology and microbiome tweeps! Do you know that the sul­fo­sugar #sul­fo­qui­no­vose (SQ) is a ubi­quit­ous mi­cro­bi­al nu­trient in the en­vi­ron­ment and in a ve­ge­ta­ri­an diet? No? Here comes some SQ pro­pa­gan­da…a thread Read more →

Biofilms by Insect Endosymbionts

by Janie | From a microbial perspective, in­sect me­ta­mor­pho­sis is a trea­cher­ous bu­si­ness. The trans­for­ma­tion from little earth­bound craw­ler to lapis-blue flier is a fla­shy eye-cat­cher, but the change is more than skin-deep. Deep with­in the lar­va, the con­tents of the gut are emp­tied, in­tes­ti­nal cells wi­ther away by auto­phagy and apo­pto­sis, and the ca­vi­ty is re-up­hol­ster­ed with di­vi­ding stem cells... Read more →

Protect Your Genes and Express Yourself

by Roberto | For any complex process to run efficiently, compartmentalization is essential. In my kitchen, results would be inedible if I did not have the information (recipes in my laptop) separate from the reactions (bowls, oven, etc.) and the cleaning (sink) and, importantly, ways to move the process of cooking from compartment to compartment. Read more →

Fine Reading: The Type VI Secretion System.

by Elio | Just like people, microbes communicate with their relatives either positively or negatively, helping each other out or inflicting damage in the process. Read more →

Fucoidans, A Feast for Few

by Janie | Fucoidans make life complicated for microbes. They are cell wall polysaccharides that comprise 23% of dry brown algae's weight and resist microbial degradation longer than other algal polymers. Their sheer grab-bag variety... Read more →

Streptomyces spores taking a ride...

by Christoph | Streptomycetes, these non-mo­tile Ac­ti­no­bac­te­ria that are cap­able of my­cel­ial growth much like fungi, are quite in­vent­ive when it comes to the dis­tri­bu­tion of their spores. They don't just re­ly on en­chant­ing scents like geos­min that they emit to at­tract spring­tails, which trans­port their spores over long dis­tan­ces (see Ro­berto's re­cent post). They also rou­tine­ly em­ploy bac­te­rial trans­port wor­kers. Read more →

Let Smell Guide You

by Roberto | Anosmia: the loss of the sense of smell. Un­til re­cent­ly, I was clue­less about anos­mia. That changed March 22nd when my good friend Hera Vla­ma­kis aler­ted me to a New York Times ar­ticle de­scrib­ing anos­mia as a pos­sible symp­tom of COVID-19. My self-eva­lua­tion rou­tine changed hence­forth to in­clude a test of my ca­pa­ci­ty to smell. Now, during... Read more →

Touch-Tone Transcription: A Pathogen's Sense of Touch

by Janie | In a world buzzing with sensory input of all stripes and colors, a bacterium isn't one to miss out on any of the latest surrounding scoop. The sense of touch is not ignored. Mechanical feedback influences how a bacterium might move or stay in place... Read more →