Small Things Considered

A Microbial Utopia: Cheese

by Nathan Jayne, Amanda Alker, and Nathalie Delherbe | Over the past decade, there have been many large scale attempts to characterize bacterial communities, from soil and ocean microbiomes to human microbiomes. There is even a collective effort to profile the Earth’s microbiome. Scientists are not only interested in knowing who is there and what they are doing, but also how... Read more →

Microbes Make the Most of Milk

by Rachel Diner | For the first year of our lives most of what we eat is milk. In fact, during the first four months it is the only thing we eat. For mothers, both breast milk and formula are popular options for getting a baby nourished, and while both breast milk and formula have the essentials needed to survive,... Read more →

The Way Up and The Way Down

by Elio | I admit to not having paid much attention to the mechanisms that plants and animals use to stand up straight, or, in the case of plants, also to descend into the soil. Yet, on reflection, the skill in detecting the effect of gravity, now called gravitropism, the older term being geotropism, is essential for life. Read more →

Good Reading: Bacterial communication through electrical signaling

by Ananya Sen | Bacterial biofilms are microbial communities within which individual cells communicate with each other. Establishing a biofilm, coordinating biofilm growth in response to nutrient availability, and interspecies interactions, all depend on communication. Read more →

Flagellar Motors: How a Bacterium Shakes its Groove Thing

by Mike Delmont | Many things in our lives are so common that we take them for granted, forgetting their remarkable complexity. These can range from the social microbiology involved in cheese making, to the physics behind the internal combustion engine, or the anato­my/physiology behind taking a couple of steps Read more →

A Whiff of Taxonomy – The Tenericutes

by Christoph | All known Tenericutes have one morpho­lo­gi­cal fea­ture in com­mon: they lack a pep­ti­do­gly­can cell wall. Their name tells the story: Te­ne­ri­cu­tes means 'soft skin­ned'. Not having this kind of 'sup­port stock­ing', many as­sume the form of blobs or drops, and, with some ex­cep­tions, do not come in fa­mi­liar shapes like rods or cocci. Think of them… Read more →

Ocean's Tiniest Predator

by Christoph | In popular terms, the marine food chain goes like this: "phytoplankton feed the zooplankton that feed the small fish (larvae) and crustaceans that feed the larger fish that feed the even bigger fish that feed us". Thus we have us, Homo sapiens, together with the great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, and... Read more →

Dial "V" for Murder

by Christoph | If you read this blog fre­quent­ly and, per­haps, be­cause we "em­pha­si­ze the un­usu­al and the un­ex­pect­ed phe­no­me­na", you may feel a little, Um.., bor­ed to see yet ano­ther post on ho­ri­zon­tal gene trans­fer (HGT). But wait, we've ac­tu­al­ly touch­ed this to­pic in few­er than 30 of our 1,200+ posts. That's less than the... Read more →

Investing in Diversification: Transport of Vitamin B12 Analogs by Microbes of the Human Gut

by Daniel and Elio | Both of us have bliss­ful­ly go­ing along in our lives with­out know­ing what cor­ri­noids are, at least not by that name. We had of course learn­ed way back (way, way back for Elio) that co­ba­la­min (vi­ta­min B₁₂) is a com­pli­ca­ted or­gan­ic mo­le­cu­le made up of pyr­role rings and co­balt, but we hadn't heard of its 'cor­ri­noid' mo­ni­ker. It de­riv­es from cor­rin, a pla­nar te­tra­pyr­role ring... Read more →

Heat, Hydrogen, and Togas

by Elio | Extremophilic microbes, especially the thermophilic ones, are exceedingly interesting for many industrial processes. And why not, be­ing that high temperatures prompt faster enzymatic reactions. Pre­sent-day uses for such organisms include the production of poly­sac­cha­ri­de-, lipid-, and protein-degrading enzymes among many. It is worth re­mem­ber­ing that this pursuit was initiated by... Read more →