Small Things Considered

Teachers Corner: Where have all the protons gone?

by Roberto | Learning is complicated. To anyone involved in teaching, it is apparent that students learn in diverse and often mysterious ways. It has even been said that one never really learns something until one has to teach it! Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Phylogeny, Phylogenetics, Phylogenomics

by Elio | You may remember the solemn proclamation that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," meaning that during our embryological development we (and everybody else) go through the steps in our evolution. This turns out to be quite wrong, but I bring it up because because it illustrates that phylogeny denotes the history... Read more →

Family Feud: Commensal vs. Pathogenic Neisseria

by Camille Brzechffa | Although several current research endeavors developing preventative measures focus on vaccines for N. gonorrhoeae, few have examined how resident bacteria of the human body can combat its colonization. Read more →

These Bacteria are Out of This World: Human Pathogens on the International Space Station

by Rachel Sidebottom | With the successful launch of the Crew Dragon by SpaceX, space exploration is once again in the American spotlight. Outside our planet, space is unconducive to life because of conditions created by cosmic radiation and microgravity. Read more →

Teacher's Corner: Long Before Fleming

by Roberto | Without any doubt, when we think about the early history of penicillin – and antibiotics in general – our minds are quickly drawn to a particularly momentous occasion. Read more →

Streptomyces spores taking a ride...

by Christoph | Streptomycetes, these non-mo­tile Ac­ti­no­bac­te­ria that are cap­able of my­cel­ial growth much like fungi, are quite in­vent­ive when it comes to the dis­tri­bu­tion of their spores. They don't just re­ly on en­chant­ing scents like geos­min that they emit to at­tract spring­tails, which trans­port their spores over long dis­tan­ces (see Ro­berto's re­cent post). They also rou­tine­ly em­ploy bac­te­rial trans­port wor­kers. Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Cytokines

by Elio | Cytokines are small proteins (~5−20 kDa) that play a large role in our defenses against infection. They stimulate both the innate and the acquired immunity and coordinate the interplay between the two, thus can be properly called immunomodulators. There are lots of them, including interferons, interleukins, tumor necrosis factors, chemokines... Read more →

Virus. ...simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein, really ?

by Christoph | In my prior post, I answered the question "are viruses alive?" with a firm: no. That was the short answer, but there is also a long answer... and it's long because it's complicated. Read more →

Virus? ...simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein.

by Christoph | In the middle of the first major pan­de­mic of my life­time I feel the need, as a mi­cro­bio­logist, to make oc­ca­sio­nal con­tri­bu­tions that may help in­di­vi­duals and so­cie­ty ap­proach the pan­de­mic in a rea­son­ab­ly in­form­ed way. To­day, I'd like to con­tri­bute with a small dose of 'mi­cro­bial li­te­ra­cy,' as cal­led for by Ken Tim­mis and colleagues... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Contagion

by Elio | A much used term nowadays, "con­ta­gi­on" or in ad­jec­tive form, "con­ta­gi­ous," is de­rived from La­tin con­tā­giō (touch­ing, con­tact, con­ta­gi­on) re­la­ted to con­tin­gō (touch clo­se­ly). In its ori­gi­nal mean­ing, the term re­fer­red so­le­ly to a dis­ease trans­mis­sible by di­rect phy­si­cal con­tact. Now­adays, its mean­ing has been broad­ened to in­clude all com­mu­ni­cable or in­fect­ious dis­ea­ses. As the Wi­ki­pe­dia says: "Of­ten the word... Read more →