Small Things Considered

Nature's Drug Factories: Visualising the Invisible

by Munro Passmore
For ge­ne­ral au­dien­ces, science can of­ten seem im­pe­ne­trab­le to un­der­stand be­cause of its in­her­ent scale and com­plex­ity. This is par­ti­cu­lar­ly true in the field of na­tur­al pro­ducts – where we seek to un­der­stand the pro­ces­ses mi­cros­cop­ic or­gan­isms un­der­take to make mo­le­cules we la­ter use as... Read more →

Heavy-duty Traffic, Microscale

by Christoph
Men­tion "fla­gel­la" and we mi­cro­bio­lo­gists in­stant­ly think of these in­gen­ious ap­pe­nda­ges that bac­te­ri­al cells use to pro­pel them­selves through fluids of va­ry­ing vis­co­si­ties (ar­chaea do this, too, with their ar­cha­el­la). We ra­re­ly think of them as an ac­ces­sory to trans­port car­go. Yes "car­go," you read cor­rect­ly, but may­be you re­mem­ber... Read more →

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 →

Diazomania I ─ A Bird's-Eye View of the Nitrogen Cycle

by Roberto
Here's a good way to get friends or re­la­tiv­es in­ter­est­ed in mi­cro­bio­lo­gy – if they aren't al­ready. Tell them to take a deep breath and to let it out. Then ask them these ques­tions: "Mostly, what went into your lungs?", and "What hap­pened to it while in your lungs?" Re­gard­less of... Read more →

When it's too cold to grow

by Roberto
I began thinking about the cold weather in Bos­ton while I swam in an open wa­ter com­pe­ti­tion off the coast of Car­ta­ge­na de In­dias in Co­lom­bia's Carib­bean coast last week­end. Then my thoughts drift­ed to bac­te­ria swim­ming in col­der and col­der wa­ters. And then the ques­tion: ... Read more →

Grant's Anatomy

by Christoph | At an EMBO workshop in Copen­ha­gen in 2006 on 'Cell cycle and cy­to­ske­le­tal ele­ments in bac­te­ria,' I was al­most un­able to stay put in my seat dur­ing one pre­sen­ta­tion: Grant Jen­sen showed the 3D-mon­tage of cryoET ima­ges of mag­ne­to­somes in Mag­ne­to­spi­ril­lum mag­ne­to­tac­ti­cum. It was a vi­su­al jour­ney in­to and through the in­ter­ior of a cell,... Read more →

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 →

A Most Lively Virus – and an Addendum

by Merry and the STC team
Mor­pho­lo­gi­cal­ly speak­ing, the vi­rus­es of me­so­phi­lic and mo­de­ra­te­ly ther­mo­phi­lic bac­te­ria and ar­chaea are a dull bunch. Of 5,100 surveyed, 97% are ho-hum head-and-tail phages − icosahedral heads with helical tails... Read more →

A Dual-Function Small RNA

by Christoph | We cele­brate the 60th an­ni­ver­sa­ry of the Lac oper­on this year and what bou­quet − et bien sûr un coup de cham­pagne − would be more ap­pro­pri­ate than to take a look at how post-tran­script­ion­al gene re­gu­la­tion com­ple­ments and ex­tends clas­si­cal tran­script­ion­al gene re­gu­la­tion? I'm talk­ing of small RNAs (sRNAs) and their role... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Diazotroph

by Roberto | It all started with my want­ing to write a post on Fran­kia. I did what I al­ways do when think­ing of a new post. I googled 'small things considered frankia'. Nothing. Good start, I can dive in­to the topic. Next, I thought let's put Frankia in the con­text of prior posts. I googled 'small things considered rhizobium'. Nothing again... Read more →