Small Things Considered

A blog for sharing appreciation of the width and depth of microbes and microbial activities on this planet.

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Of Aerobes and Anaerobes

Noteworthy — When first introduced to microbes, we quickly learn to divide them into aerobes and anaerobes. Then we qualify those titles with modifiers to yield such classes as facultative anaerobes, obligate aerobes and strict anaerobes. Read more →

Posted on April 24, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Noteworthy, Physiology & Genetics, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wait, What? extracurricular DNA (eDNA)

by Christoph — Among biologists, DNA is a household term, the acronym for desoxyribonucleic acid, which hardly anyone pronounces in full. But can you find your way around the zoo of prefixes that are in use and in most cases are not separated from 'DNA' by a hyphen, as for example in Z-DNA? cccDNA, rcDNA (ocDNA), mtDNA, ecDNA, cDNA, bDNA, gDNA (chrDNA), kDNA, xDNA, rDNA, tDNA, ssDNA,… and eDNA. Read more →

Posted on March 17, 2025 at 02:30 AM in Physiology & Genetics, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Protections and Interactions in the Beewolf Nursery

by Tobias Engl — Beewolves, their larvae, and their Streptomyces symbionts not only use multiple, largely different classes of chemical compounds to protect themselves against detrimental microbial competitors. To be most effective, these compounds are produced and deployed in a precisely timed sequence. Beewolves are solitary digger wasps that hunt on bees, paralyze them and provision single eggs with... Read more →

Posted on February 24, 2025 at 01:30 AM in Physiology & Genetics, Symbioses, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Re: Limitations of LB Medium

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 →

Posted on December 12, 2024 at 01:30 AM in Methodology, Physiology & Genetics, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 →

Posted on November 18, 2024 at 12:04 AM in Ecology, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 →

Posted on October 10, 2024 at 01:30 AM in Odds & Ends, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 →

Posted on September 26, 2024 at 01:30 AM in Odds & Ends, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

...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 →

Posted on September 16, 2024 at 03:16 AM in Physiology & Genetics, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

...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 →

Posted on September 12, 2024 at 01:30 AM in Physiology & Genetics, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 →

Posted on September 09, 2024 at 02:55 AM in Physiology & Genetics, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

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