Small Things Considered

Talmudic Question #170

Why is RNA replication limited to the viruses and viroids? Read more →

Talmudic Question #169

Lactose is rarely found in Nature except for mammalian milk. How come? Read more →

Talmudic Question #168

Are there classes of genes that cannot be productively transmitted by phages (that is, cannot be transduced)?
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Talmudic Question #167

What is a microbe? (Defend your definition.)
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Talmudic Question #166

Why haven’t eukaryotes developed a CRISPR system? (the immune system doesn’t count) Read more →

Talmudic Question #165

Describe the properties of a yet-to-arise new DOMAIN of life. Read more →

Talmudic Question #164

On Earth, L-amino acids in proteins go with D-ribo- or D-de­oxy­ri­bo-nuc­leo­tides. At which point in time during the evo­lu­tion of liv­ing sys­tems was the de­ci­sion made to make use of only one of the enan­tio­mer pairs? Read more →

Talmudic Question #163

Replication, transcription and trans­la­tion achieve fi­de­li­ty through hy­dro­gen bond­ing at all sta­ges ex­cept for the cri­ti­cal char­ging of tRNA with their cog­nate ami­no acid by de­di­ca­ted ami­no acyl tRNA syn­the­ta­ses. Can you en­vi­sion the evo­lu­tion of a... Read more →

The Vicissitudes of a Talmudic Question

by Elio | When we try to construct a Talmudic Question, we are con­cerned with the accuracy of the premise and ensuring that an answer has not been previously provided. We were toying with this one: “Bac­terial endosymbionts of insects have reduced genomes but, best we know, they have not exported some of their genes to the host cell nu­cleus (as organelles have)... Read more →

Talmudic Question #162

Can you imagine a eukaryotic virus that can infect a bacterium or an archaeon? Read more →