Small Things Considered

Emiliania huxleyi : Past, Present and Future

by Roberto  
Christoph recently brought to my attention a resource for anyone interested in a brief introduction to coccolithophores, with particular emphasis on Emiliania huxleyi. Christoph knew well that I, as a fan of this microalga, would enjoy the site. This got me thinking about Ehux (its endearing name that many use) yet once more. Read more →

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 →

An Illustrated Tree

by Roberto  
From the fun­da­men­tal con­cepts of bio­lo­gy, the fact that all or­gan­isms now alive share a com­mon an­ces­tor (LUCA) ranks as one of my fa­vo­rites. When I pause to con­si­der that, des­pite four bil­lion years of evo­lu­tion and di­ver­gence, my ri­bo­so­mal RNA shares some stret­ches of se­quence iden­ti­ty with all other au­to­no­mous or­gan­isms, I still get goose bumps... Read more →

The Atlas of Cell Structure

by Roberto  
Our knowledge of the structure of microbial cells just keeps getting better as the resolution of imaging techniques continues to increase. A key player in this rapidly evolving technological field is cryo-electron tomography (cryoET) which, aided by powerful computational tools, allows for the generation of three-dimensional images of whole microbial cells... Read more →

Fine Reading: The Life and Times of Paul Buchner

by Roberto  
In preparing our recent post on ectosymbionts, I discovered Jan Sapp's 2002 perspective: "Paul Buchner (1886 –1978) and hereditary symbiosis in insects." I suspect that many STC readers will immediately recognize the name of Paul Buchner, after whom Paul Baumann named the now well-known aphid endosymbiont Buchnera. But I also suspect most will not know too much about Buchner's seminal contributions... Read more →

Applied Molecular Microbiology at Dubrovnik

by Roberto 
If you are interest­ed in any sub­ject re­lated to small mo­le­cule na­tur­al pro­ducts of mi­cro­bi­al ori­gin, the "John In­nes/Rud­jer Boš­ko­vić Sum­mer School in Ap­plied Mo­le­cu­lar Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy" is for you. I know that course name is a mouth­ful so when I am de­scrib­ing the school to mi­cro­bio­lo­gists, I re­fer to it simp­ly as... Read more →

I → Y → II ?

by Christoph
Don't worry, STC won't switch to cu­nei­form without warning. What va­gue­ly re­sem­bles a chemi­cal for­mu­la or a cu­nei­form text is meant to keep the title as short as pos­sible. More verbose: I will take a clos­er look at Y-shap­ed bac­te­r­ia to see if their "ir­re­gu­lar" shape points to their mode of cell di­vi­sion... Read more →

The Krebs (Bi)Cycle

by Christoph
Today I'm tak­ing you on a short tour, a (bi)­cycle tour. Don't be alarmed, it won't be a long ride. And no pre­vi­ous fit­ness check! You can cycle di­rect­ly on your screen. A mi­ni­mum of brain ac­ti­vi­ty is ex­pect­ed though. You gues­sed it, it's about the Krebs cycle. More pre­cise­ly: The Krebs (Bi)­Cycle. Let's pedal! Read more →

In the Company of Bacteria: Amoebae

by Christoph  
In times long past, highly evolved eu­karyotes, for ex­ample bio­chemists, oc­ca­sio­nal­ly quip­ped that bac­ter­ia were noth­ing more than a bag of en­zymes. Well, from the per­spec­tive of bac­ter­ia, one could easi­ly re­turn the com­pli­ment: eu­kar­y­o­tes, for ex­ample single-cel­led amoe­bae, are little more than a... Read more →

Summer Courses in Microbiology

by Roberto
These days in New Eng­land – spe­ci­fi­cal­ly in Cam­bridge, where I am now – the air is crisp as the tem­pe­ra­tures are be­gin­ning to drop and the leaves are al­ready dis­play­ing mag­ni­fi­cent col­ors. Fall is in full swing, and sum­mer is a me­mo­ry. But this past sum­mer, once again, left me with the de­light­ful me­mo­ry... Read more →