Small Things Considered

The Who-Ate-Whom of Terms in Biology: Virovory

by Christoph  
Like with the cus­to­ma­ry New Year's Eve fire­works, eve­ry year we bio­lo­gists are blessed with hi­ther­to un­known or lar­ge­ly un­com­mon sci­en­ti­fic terms. Some stick, others blaze away like said fire­works. How would you guess the term "vi­ro­vo­ry," which was ad­ded to Wi­ki­pe­dia on 29 Decem­ber 2022, will fare? Read more →

Giant Soil Viruses

by Abigail Curtis
My first niche microbiological interest came freshman year of high school, when I discovered that viruses don't solely infect animals. Indeed, viruses are pervasive in every ecosystem, including the smallest ones in the ground. The aspect of viruses in microbial ecosystems... Read more →

Retrons Resolved

by Mechas Zambrano  
Just like solving a crossword puzzle or a sudoku, it is also greatly gratifying when apparently obscure scientific obser­vations are figured out. There are many examples in microbiology of obser­vations that, though they hint at some biological... Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: The Polony Method

by Christoph  
If there is one venerable la­bo­ra­to­ry tech­nique in vi­ro­lo­gy, it is the plaque assay for the de­tect­ion and quan­ti­fi­ca­tion of bac­te­rio­pha­ges. It was pio­neer­ed by Fe­lix d'He­rel­le al­ready around 1917, and in the ear­ly 1950s, plaque as­says were also es­tab­lish­ed for eu­kar­yot­ic vi­rus­es... Read more →

A Most Lively Virus – and an Addendum

by Merry (†) and the STC team  
Mor­pho­lo­gi­cal­ly speak­ing, the vi­rus­es of me­so­phi­lic and mo­de­ra­te­ly ther­mo­phi­lic bac­te­ria and ar­chaea are a dull bunch. Of 5,100 surveyed, 97% are ho-hum head-and-tail phages − icosahedral heads with helical tails... Read more →

Bacterial Symbionts Halt The Disease Burden of Dengue Virus

by Rupinder Kaur, Sarah R. Bordenstein, and Seth R. Bordenstein  
Amidst a global surge and focus on COVID-19 infections, other diseases that have had and will continue to have impact on hu­man health cannot be forgotten. Dengue, for example, continues to be a major mosquito-borne viral infection, impacting more than 100 million people per year. Dengue can inflict... Read more →

A Losing Battle

by Elio  
Relatively few people are aware the virus that causes Covid19 has its own name, to wit, SARS-CoV-2. Outside the scientific literature, this is seldom used. Yet, almost everyone is aware that the AIDS virus is called HIV. But this is exceptional. The overwhelming number of people call a virus after the disease... Read more →

The COVID-19 Virus by the Numbers

by Elio | The trio of Yinon Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo, here aug­men­ted by Avi Flam­holz, have done it again. In the past, they pre­sen­ted us the astound­ing num­bers for the dis­tri­bu­tion of bio­mass on this pla­net, no less. We high­light­ed this se­mi­nal con­tri­bu­tion to our un­der­stand­ing of the li­ving world... 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 →