Small Things Considered

Green Sloths and Robots

by Roberto
... in the case of red par­rot feath­ers the pig­ment has the ad­ded be­ne­fit of pro­tect­ing the plu­mage from bac­te­ri­al de­gra­da­tion. To­day I stay on the to­pic of ani­mal co­lor­a­tion by de­scrib­ing the pe­culi­ar pe­lage pig­ment of sloths. Exact­ly what con­sti­tutes an eye-catch­ing color is, of course, in the eye of the be­holder. Read more →

How to Be a Lichen

by Nastassja Noell
Lichens are symbiotic or­gan­isms – al­gae, fun­gi, cy­ano­bac­te­ria, bac­te­ria and yeasts – that form mi­nia­ture eco­sys­tems that you can hold in the palm of your hand. They live on trees and rocks through­out the South­ern Ap­pa­lach­ians, and are also found in the Arc­tic, the An­tarc­tic, rain­forests, al­pine tun­dra and es­pe­cial­ly in the de­sert. Read more →

In one step from commensal to mutualist (almost), part 2|2

by Christoph
I had concluded the first part by say­ing that I would now dis­cuss what mu­ta­tions Ko­ga et al. (2022) found in two mu­ta­tor E. coli line­ages that al­lowed the bac­te­ria to suc­cess­ful­ly "take over" from Pan­toea sp. as sym­bionts in Plau­tia sta­li stink­bugs (termed "im­prov­ed" line­ages.) Here we go... Read more →

In one step from commensal to mutualist (almost), part 1|2

by Christoph
It is as true as it is, well, bor­ing to keep say­ing that Esch­eri­chia co­li is the best un­der­stood uni­cel­lu­lar or­gan­ism, and the most-stud­ied with ~41,000 tag­ged en­tries in Pub­Med since 1932. But then, every five years or so, comes a sur­prise of what un­ex­pec­ted feats this un­as­sum­ing bac­te­ri­um is cap­able of. Read more →

Small RNAs Considered

by Janie | With the discovery of the trp attenuator in the 1970s, followed shortly by the ColE1 plasmid RNA I, RNA became a much more interesting personality. The biomolecule wears far more hats than mRNA, rRNA, and tRNA. In all its multitudes, RNA seems to boast an infinite functional repertoire... Read more →

A Paramecium, a Purple Bacterium, and a Green Alga Walk into a Bar…

by Janie | "Three to tango" makes yet another appearance in endosymbioses, this time in the form of a purple-green ciliate that is home to both purple bacteria and green algae. At first glance, this seems like a paradox... Read more →

Bacterial Symbionts Halt The Disease Burden of Dengue Virus

by Rupinder Kaur, Sarah R. Bordenstein, and Seth R. Bordenstein | Amidst a global surge and focus on COVID-19 infections, other diseases that have had and will continue to have impact on hu­man health cannot be forgotten. Dengue, for example, continues to be a major mosquito-borne viral infection, impacting more than 100 million people per year. Dengue can inflict... Read more →

The Bacterial Symbionts of the Giant Tube Worms Are Varied In Shape and Function

by Elio | Some thirty years ago it was my good fortune to sit in an air­plane next to the famed marine micro­biologist, the late Holger Jannasch, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He shared with me stories of his deep-sea explor­ations, especially his voyages in the sub­mersible Alvin. These included visits to the recently discovered deep sea hydro­thermal vents... Read more →

Trans-Translation Part 2: Of Vibrios and Squids

by Janie | This New Year story begins with newly hatched baby bobtail squids. Each squid is translucent and barely the size of a grain of barley. As they swim around, the six pores on their heads ringed with mucus-coated cells snag passerby Vibrio fischeri from the water. 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 →