Small Things Considered

Ice Ice Maybe

by Janie  
The ability to trigger ice formation is a property shared by certain particles both organic and inorganic, including bacteria, viruses, phytoplankton, pollen, soot, dust. These little particles help water molecules come together and form ice at warmer temperatures than freezing point... Read more →

A Dinoflagellate and its Mucosphere

by Christoph
There are strikingly dif­fer­ent table man­ners among hu­man cul­tures past and pre­sent when it comes to food in­gest­ion, who wouldn't know. Not so with our single-cel­led eu­kar­yo­tic re­la­tives, the pro­tists, who gobble up eve­ry­thing that feels and smells about right? Wrong. En­gulf­ment, as bio­lo­gists call this be­ha­vio­ral pro­cess is a bit like put­ting a bowl of ra­men noo­dles to your lips and... Read more →

Escherichia coli – Flagship Bacterium of Molecular Biology

by Roberto  
There is little doubt that Esche­ri­ch­ia coli is a fa­vo­ri­te of ours here at STC. E. coli fans from around the world seem to get a spe­cial thrill when we post any new de­vel­op­ment aris­ing from stu­dies on this as­ton­ish­ing mo­del bac­te­ri­um. We are so ta­ken by it that our co­ver­age has gone be­yond de­scrib­ing re­search. Pre­vious­ly on STC... Read more →

How Fairy Tales Taught Us to Think about Science

by Chelsi Cassilly  
In the tale of the Princess and the Pea, the royalty of a young princess is confirmed by her ability to detect a single pea under 20 mattresses and 20 quilts. This remarkable sensitivity, while likely creating an unbearable life for this princess, pays dividends in the world of immunology where appropriate responses are absolutely crucial. Read more →

Shepherding bacteria with specks of light

by Helena Massana-Cid  
The celebrity among bacteria Escherichia coli, as many other swimming cells, inspects its surroundings by moving in zigzag motion while searching for "greener pastures." Thus, if a group is swimming in a homogeneous area they will fill all available space uniformly... 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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

On drums: Escherichia coli

by Christoph  
"Light funky groove with a rol­ling snare pat­tern and oc­ca­sion­al fills, syn­co­pat­ed wood block and per­cus­sive hand‑drum and rol­ling con­ga pat­tern" de­scrib­es a par­ti­cu­lar drum pat­tern (#15) by ac­claimed Ni­ge­ri­an mas­ter drum­mer Tony Allen. But don't wor­ry, you didn't stumble in­to the drums sect­ion... Read more →