Small Things Considered

A blog for sharing appreciation of the width and depth of microbes and microbial activities on this planet.

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Pictures Considered #61: how FtsZ-rings get shoveled to midcell in vitro

by Christoph  
The last thirty years have been an "eye-open­ing" jour­ney for mi­cro­bial cell bio­logists, quite li­ter­al­ly. I am, of course, talk­ing about fluores­cent la­bel­ing of in­di­vi­dual cell com­ponents and the non‑invasive ob­ser­va­tion of their "be­havior" in liv­ing bac­ter­ial cells. Just re­cent­ly, I con­sider­ed a vi­deo clip about Vibrio cho­lerae har­poon­ing DNA. Now again a video clip, about... Read more →

Posted on July 24, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Methodology, Physiology & Genetics, Pictures Considered | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #60: Vibrio cholerae harpooning DNA

by Christoph  
Let me start with an adage: a picture is worth a thousand words. Can this also be valid for video snippets? I think so. Here you see a few seconds of a looping video showing how a cholera bacterium extends a pilus, attaches the tip to DNA in the environment, and then retracts it. Worth a thousand words? Yes, sure, but also deserving 1,000 words... Read more →

Posted on July 03, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Methodology, Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #59: Inside a Choanoflagellate

by Roberto  
Choanoflagellates (endearingly referred to as "choanos") are the closest living relative of animals and as such they can provide insights into the evolution of animal multicellularity. Interestingly, at least two choano developmental features are induced by bacterial products. Read more →

Posted on May 04, 2023 at 01:31 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Pictures Considered | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #58: Visualizing Introns

by Christoph  
When we talk about genes and genomes today, we al­most re­flex­i­ve­ly thinks of long strings of the let­ters G, A, T, and C. And by read­ing se­quen­ces, we ea­si­ly de­tect stret­ches that code for pro­teins. We de­tect pro­mo­ters, tran­script­ion fac­tor bind­ing mo­tifs, start/stop sig­nals for tran­scrip­tion, sig­nals where in­trons are re­moved by splic­ing from pri­ma­ry tran­scripts...  Read more →

Posted on April 17, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Methodology, Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #57 : Coloring a Cell

by Christoph  
Our ability to visual­ly per­ceive and dis­cri­mi­nate is al­ways sligh­ly over­whelmed by black-and-white ima­ges. Es­pe­cial­ly, of course, when the ob­jects de­pict­ed are out­side our trained, fa­mil­iar size spec­trum, such as bac­te­ri­al cells and their in­nards. Take for ex­ample Fi­gure 1, the cryo-ET image of a ti­ny... Read more →

Posted on May 19, 2022 at 01:30 AM in Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #56 : A Pinch of Salt

by Christoph  
Micro­bio­lo­gists deal with salt, sodi­um chlo­ride, all the time. Most growth me­dia for our cher­ished re­search con­tain at least "a pinch of salt." Or we need salt as a com­po­nent of buf­fers for bio­che­mi­cal ex­pe­ri­ments that re­quire de­fined con­cen­tra­tions of Na+ and Cl− ions. How­ever, we usu­al­ly on­ly see crys­talline salt when we take... Read more →

Posted on December 02, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Pictures Considered | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #55 : Conjugation, and some pairing issues

by Christoph  
If you've ever taken a class on bac­te­ri­al ge­ne­tics, ei­ther re­cent­ly or in the last few de­ca­des, you've no doubt seen this image: the con­ju­ga­tion of two bac­te­ri­al cells (Figure 1). And if you found this image so self-ex­pla­na­to­ry that you didn't both­er to ask for the source, you're not alone. The in­ter­net is re­plete with it, in vary­ing... Read more →

Posted on November 15, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #54 : Mitochondria can't swim...

by Christoph  
...and get pushed around in­stead. Not equip­ped with fla­gel­la for pro­pel­ling or Type IV pi­li for twit­ching they can't ac­tive­ly move. But one step at a time. If you re­call what you know about mi­to­chon­dria, you may pic­ture them as ovoid or bean-shaped or­gan­el­les, house­mates float­ing in the eu­kar­yo­tic cyto­plasm. They are... Read more →

Posted on August 02, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #53 : The ocean water column is profoundly dark...

by Christoph  
...for the most part. And it's vastly deep­er than the dia­gram Ro­ber­to showed in his re­cent post "The Bio­lo­gi­cal Pump." The eu­photic and meso­pe­lagic zone sizes are cor­rect, but do not even ap­pro­xi­ma­te­ly co­re­late with their ver­ti­cal re­pre­sen­ta­tion in the dia­gram. Why is this a point... Read more →

Posted on July 08, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #52 : Streptomyces  stacks Z-rings...

by Christoph  
Streptomyces stacks Z-rings... into lad­ders in­side its aeri­al/spo­ro­gen­ic hy­phae. If this sen­tence strikes you as a bar­rage of jar­gon or just gib­ber­ish, don't des­pair, help is coming. First, en­joy the "light show" in the 20‑se­cond video clip on the right side. It runs in loop, so you can fol­low more than... Read more →

Posted on May 06, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Pictures Considered, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

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