Small Things Considered

A Whiff of Taxonomy – the genus Psychrobacter

by Christoph | What could be more chill­ing than to de­viate for once from our mot­to to "...em­pha­size the un­usual and the un­ex­pected phe­no­mena" and ta­king a look at a, well, slightly bor­ing group of psy­chro­phil­ic bac­te­ria? The ge­nus Psy­chro­bac­ter − the pre­fix psychro- comes from the an­cient Greek ψυχρός for cold, frozen − con­tains about 40 de­scribed spe­cies of... Read more →

A Short History of Yogurt

by Roberto | Rumor has it that the combina­tion of yogurt and honey is the "food of the gods." I can't vouch for that since I have not had the chance to query the gods about their diets. Yet just the other day, while en­joying ar­ti­sanal Greek-style yogurt top­ped with local raw honey, I closed my eyes and was imme­dia­tely trans­ported... Read more →

Teachers Corner: material collections we recommend

by Christoph | We at STC are happy to take care of the interests of teachers. We most often do this by choosing and treating topics in our articles in a way that is suitable for teaching (check our category "Teachers Corner".) Today we would like to draw the attention of the teachers among you to collections of materials... Read more →

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 →