Small Things Considered

A Case for Colors

by Lizah van der Aart | Last year, Gilles van Wezel and Chang­sheng Wu an­noun­ced the dis­co­ve­ry of a com­pound with a com­ple­te­ly no­vel che­mi­cal back­bone, Lug­du­no­my­cin. This is an ex­cep­tio­nal feat as we hard­ly find com­pounds with com­ple­te­ly no­vel che­mi­cal struc­tures. This is even more in­cre­dible if you con­si­der how it was found. Bac­te­ria don't always... Read more →

The Complex Anatomy and Physiology of the Gut of Wood-feeding Beetles. A Snippet.

by Elio | The digestive system of animals can be wondrously complex. Think of our own, which consists of such diverse organs as the mouth, the esophagus, stomach, the small and large intestines, and the anus. Each one is responsible for a particular set of functions. Is such a division of labor also seen in "simpler" animals? This question was asked recently of wood-feeding beetles by a group of no less than 18 investigators from all over the US. Read more →

Another Cell Bites the Dust

by Janie | Almost a century ago, Walther Goebl and Oswald Avery observed that Streptococcus pneumoniae cells lysed upon entering stationary phase, but the mechanism behind this autolysis remained elusive. Read more →

...et respice finem (3' –OH)

by Christoph | Worry not, this is no lengthy con­tem­pla­tion on the use of clas­si­cal La­tin in sci­en­ti­fic lang­uage. It's a not-so-short piece to em­pha­size that it makes sense to mark the ends of non-bran­ched poly­mers like DNA and RNA, and there­by de­fine their che­mi­cal di­rec­tio­na­li­ty. Bio­in­for­ma­ti­cians who rou­tine­ly work with DNA and RNA in fasta... Read more →

Are all stresses oxidative stresses?

by J. Jeffrey Morris | I have a confes­sion to make. I get stres­sed. A lot. I think I've spent the bet­ter part of the last three years with the va­gue feel­ing I'm for­get­ting some­thing real­ly im­por­tant. I bet there are a few people in the rea­ding au­di­ence that can sym­pa­thize – it seems to be a pret­ty com­mon ex­pe­ri­ence for as­sis­tant pro­fes­sors. The stres­sors come... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Trophosome

by Elio | A rather specific term, trophosome refers – as per the Wikipedia – to 'an organ found in some animals that houses symbiotic bacteria that provide food for their host.' Trophé (τροφή) denotes nourishment, soma (σῶμα), body, denoting that trophosomes are intimately involved in their host's nutrition. Read more →

A Sulfur For An Oxygen

by Elio | Tampering with the chem­is­try of our ho­liest of mo­le­cules may seem sa­cri­le­gious, but it is wide­spread and con­spi­cuous. In fact, DNA mo­di­fi­ca­tions abound. Think, for star­ters of DNA me­thyl­a­tion, which is the main tool of epi­ge­ne­tics, or an even lon­ger known mo­di­fi­ca­tion, the DNA gly­co­sy­la­tion that in some phages pro­tects their DNA from... Read more →

Extracellular Electron Transfer (EET) Goes Mainstream

by Kevin Blake | Of all the strange ways that bacteria can make a living, mineral respiration ranks among the strangest. Perhaps it’s my anthropomorphic worldview, but the idea of “breathing” solid rock (“No, they’re minerals!” Breaking Bad’s Hank Schrader would shout) seems completely absurd. Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Moonlighting

by Christoph
The Cambridge Dictionary defines "moon­light­ing" as: the act of work­ing at an ex­tra job, es­pe­ci­al­ly with­out tel­ling your main em­ploy­er. (Far) off the job mar­ket, "moon­light­ing pro­teins" are single po­ly­pep­ti­de chains that per­form mul­ti­ple bio­che­mi­cal or bio­phy­si­cal func­tions in ar­chae­al, bac­te­ri­al, and eu­kar­yo­tic cells. Read more →

The Story of Free Use GFP (fuGFP)

by Nick Coleman and Mark Sommerville | It is per­haps iro­nic that for a sto­ry about open-source sci­ence, the tale of Free Use GFP (fuGFP) be­gins with a com­mer­cial col­la­bo­ra­tion. The Co­le­man lab was con­trac­ted by a small in­dus­try part­ner to de­ve­lop green fluo­res­cent bac­te­ria for qua­li­ty con­trol ap­pli­ca­tions. We plan­ned ini­tial­ly to use su­per­fol­der GFP (sfGFP) for this job, since ... Read more →