Small Things Considered

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 →

Pictures Considered #54 : Mitochondria can't swim...

by Christoph | ...and get pushed around in­stead. Not equip­ped with fla­gel­la for pro­pel­ling or Type IV pi­li for twit­ching they can't ac­tive­ly move. But one step at a time. If you re­call what you know about mi­to­chon­dria, you may pic­ture them as ovoid or bean-shaped or­gan­el­les, house­mates float­ing in the eu­kar­yo­tic cyto­plasm. They are... Read more →

Teachers Corner: The Name for the Small Things We Consider

by Elio & Roberto | As microbiology teachers, ma­ny of us de­light in re­tel­ling the 17th cen­tu­ry sto­ry of Leeu­wen­hoek peer­ing through his mi­cro­sco­pe at samp­les from his den­tal plaque or Delft ca­nal wa­ters and nam­ing the crea­tur­es he ob­serv­ed "ani­mal­cul­es." How­ever, that sto­ry is apo­cryph­al be­cause Leeu­wen­hoek spoke Dutch. The words he used to de­scribe Read more →

Pictures Considered #53 : The ocean water column is profoundly dark...

by Christoph | ...for the most part. And it's vastly deep­er than the dia­gram Ro­ber­to showed in his re­cent post "The Bio­lo­gi­cal Pump." The eu­photic and meso­pe­lagic zone sizes are cor­rect, but do not even ap­pro­xi­ma­te­ly co­re­late with their ver­ti­cal re­pre­sen­ta­tion in the dia­gram. Why is this a point... Read more →

Teachers Corner: Chalks Talks vs PowerPoints

by Elio | Two years ago today, Christopher Waters from Michigan State University posted a preprint in bioRxiv entitled "Rock the Chalk: A five-year comparative analysis of a large microbiology lecture course reveals improved outcomes of chalk-talk compared to PowerPoint." It is a good read... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: The Biological Pump

by Roberto | Quick, without much think­ing, what image came to mind when you read "bio­lo­gi­cal pump" in to­day's title? If you are like me, pre­dis­posed to think in cel­lu­lar and mo­le­cu­lar terms, you might have thought of an in­te­gral mem­brane pro­tein that pumps mo­le­cules in­to or out the cell. Per­haps any of... Read more →

Pictures Considered #52 : Streptomyces stacks Z-rings...

by Christoph | Streptomyces stacks Z-rings... into lad­ders in­side its aeri­al/spo­ro­gen­ic hy­phae. If this sen­tence strikes you as a bar­rage of jar­gon or just gib­ber­ish, don't des­pair, help is coming. First, en­joy the "light show" in the 20‑se­cond video clip on the right side. It runs in loop, so you can fol­low more than... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Alpha, Beta, Gamma Diversities

by Elio
In ecology, these terms refer to various le­vels of species diversities... Read more →

Antibiotics and the Foods We Eat

by Roberto | When it comes to the ani­mals that hu­mans raise to eat, a quick look at their num­bers proves sober­ing. World­wide, there are some 650 mill­ion pigs, 1 bill­ion heads of cattle and 26 bill­ion chickens. Such numbers ca­not be achieved by tra­di­tio­nal ani­mal rear­ing pract­ices that use ex­ten­sive surface areas. Rather, most of these ani­mals are grown... Read more →