by Christoph — Say, you are a student in a molecular genetics lab course or a more advanced cloning expert, you will inevitably have to deal with E. coli. And to make E. coli bacteria grow quickly, standard protocols almost always suggest using LB medium as a "rich medium". You follow the protocol... Read more →
Of Terms in Biology: Edaphon
by Roberto — Soil, the material on the surface of the ground on which plants grow, is itself teeming with life. And there's a term that unifies all that life as an interconnected whole: edaphon. Though it is seldom found in the scientific literature, I will argue that it should be more widely taught and used. Read more →
The Deep Biosphere – A Video
by Roberto — It may be because it carries on so very slowly or because it is so deeply buried. Who knows, but I find the abundant microbial life of the deep biosphere thoroughly mesmerizing. That's why I was thrilled by a video on the subject that Memo Berkmen – long-time friend and STC fan – brought to my attention. It's only natural that I now share it with you. Read more →
Extreme ORFs
by Roberto — If you were to plot the frequency of all known open reading frames (ORFs) as a function of the number codons they contain you'd see a broad distribution showing an average of about three hundred codons and a long tail of very long ORFs. Just for fun, what are the very end points of the graph? What is the longest ORF known? And the shortest? Read more →
...rosette is a rosette. (3|3)
by Christoph — Among the Alphaproteobacteria, a number of species from phylogenetically distantly related orders are known for forming rosettes during growth. Despite commonalities, they all have their own peculiarities when it comes to the first cell‑cell contact(s) during "rosetting". Phaeobacter inhibens (order Rhodobacterales) cells attach to each other by their "sticky ends" at one pole... Read more →
...rosette is a rosette is a... (2|3)
by Christoph — I like to imagine that microscopists in the late 19th century who looked at water samples were happily surprised when they saw organized structures of cell clusters in the whole tangle of protists and bacteria, which they then liked to call “rosettes” because these were structures known from botany. And on closer inspection, it turned out that some of them were actually bacterial rosettes… Read more →
Rosette is a rosette is a... (1|3)
by Christoph — I dare say that every biologist was blown away when they, a decade ago or so, first saw pictures of spherical rosettes that choanoflagellates can and readily do form. Is this emergent multicellularity? Skilled microscopists had long been aware of such "rosettes" among (some) bacteria, but they never made it into the canon of bacterial shapes as they only form under certain growth conditions. Read more →
How E. coli Rose to Prominence – An Addendum
by Roberto — In an era of microbiology largely dominated by research surrounding previously unimaginable extent of microbial diversity, here at STC we still have a strong affection for the advances made investigating model bacteria; prime amongst these is E. coli. Thus, it is no surprise that we are fascinated by the history of E. coli research. Read more →
On the Origin of (the Word) Species
by Roberto — Systematic classification of organisms is a fundamental part of biology. Yet, despite its being essential, the species concept has a problem; there is still no universally accepted definition. Read more →
Hey flagellum, shift into reverse gear!
by Christoph — In a classical manual gearbox, a gearwheel is inserted between the countershaft and the drive shaft. This reverses the direction of rotation of the drive shaft. Flagella have found a smart solution to do without an additional gearwheel in their gearbox: They run their engine along the outside of a gearwheel or, if they reverse the direction of rotation, on its inside. Read more →