Small Things Considered

Symbiosis

by Elio et al. | For as long as I can re­mem­ber, I have been fas­ci­na­ted by the sub­ject of sym­bio­sis. This is one of the grand themes in bio­lo­gy, what Mar­ga­ret McFall-Ngai has apt­ly called 'the ele­phant in the room', de­serv­ing much love and at­tent­ion. But ex­act­ly, what is it that is so fas­ci­na­ting about it? Read more →

Replay : A Close Encounter of the Enological Kind

by John Ingraham | Early in my career, by good fortune, I encountered the malolactic fermentation. Investigating it by standard microbiologi­cal methods led to results that changed the way California red wines are made, for the better most agree. How satisfying it is to think that I was following in the footsteps of Pasteur, no less, and his early career... Read more →

State of the World's Fungi

by Roberto | We want to bring to your attention an outstanding new report on fungi from the Kew Royal Botanic Garden. It makes for great reading and clearly points out the many roles that fungi play on the functioning of Earth's biosphere. Read more →

Take a Deep Breath of... Methane

by Christoph | If you were faced with the task of pre­par­ing a lec­ture se­ri­es on "ge­ne­ral bac­te­ri­al phy­si­o­lo­gy", you could ea­si­ly choose Pseu­do­mo­nas ae­ru­gi­no­sa  as your com­pan­ion, your mo­del or­gan­ism, to co­ver (al­most) eve­ry to­pic. Yet, when it comes to me­ta­bo­lic ver­sa­ti­li­ty, you could also think of Rho­do­pseu­do­mo­nas pal­us­tris  as an al­ter­na­ti­ve. This Al­pha­pro­teo­bac­te­ri­um of the... Read more →

On your marks, get set, go!

by Christoph | When did you first hear about the "ge­ne­tic code" ? In high school ? Or in col­lege, in an un­der­gra­du­ate course in mo­le­cu­lar bio­lo­gy and/or ge­ne­tics ? In either case you were cer­tain­ly shown the fa­mous co­don table that spe­ci­fies which of the 64 pos­sible trip­lets in mes­sen­ger RNA (mRNA) are trans­la­ted in­to one of the 20 ca­no­ni­cal... Read more →

Why You Must Plot Your Growth Data On Semi-log Graph Paper

by Elio | Take our word for it. For experiment involving growing cells, bacterial or otherwise, God meant you to pay attention to the condi­tions of growth. He also meant you to plot the results of a growth ex­periment on semi-log paper. Why? Plotting the log of the number of cells versus time buys you... Read more →

Friend & Foe

by Christoph | In a post two month ago, I referred to 'defensive symbioses'. In a nutshell: one or more symbiotic bacteria produce a cocktail of antibiotics that provide protection of a eukaryotic host against an array of opportunistic bacterial and fungal pathogens. I introduced the term not in contrast but... Read more →

Even More Antibiotics In The Nursery!

by Christoph | We had learned earlier that Philanthus triangulum  beewolves – solitary digger wasps that prey on bees, hence their name – employ a "cocktail" of nine different antibiotics to protect their offspring from detrimental fungal infections. The antibiotics are produced – I repeat from the earlier post – by a bacterial symbiont, 'Candidatus Streptomyces philanthi', which the... Read more →

Microbes Make the Most of Milk

by Rachel Diner | For the first year of our lives most of what we eat is milk. In fact, during the first four months it is the only thing we eat. For mothers, both breast milk and formula are popular options for getting a baby nourished, and while both breast milk and formula have the essentials needed to survive,... Read more →

Pictures Considered #45. A Gauze Bandage

by Christoph | What resembles a snippet of a gauze ban­dage, a fabric made by the 'warp and weft' tech­ni­que of weav­ing on a loom, is ac­tu­al­ly an elec­tron-mi­cro­sco­pic pic­ture of a frag­ment of the sheath of the ar­chae­on Me­tha­no­trix con­ci­lii that grows in fi­la­ments si­mi­lar to many cy­a­no­bac­te­ria. The pic­ture – I see it as a piece... Read more →