Recommended posts
This is a list of some of my old posts that you may find worth reading:
In the year 79 AD, the Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii were devastated by a terrible eruption of Mount Vesuvius. As a result, the towns were buried under many meters of volcanic ash, which left buildings, food remains and human bodies in a remarkable state of preservation...
The UK postal service has issued a new series of stamps featuring 10 eminent scientists, including Edward Jennner (1749-1823) and Joseph Lister (1827-1912) -- who are considered the 'fathers' of vaccination and antiseptic surgery, respectively. They both had a rough time trying to convince their fellow physicians...
The froth of the liquid jade
Thirteen centuries ago, Tibetans started to enjoy the drinking of tea. However, the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) did not grow on the Tibet plateau, so the product had to be brought from the neighbor regions. Around the year 1000, tea was transported through a very mountainous terrain, with mules and horses following a path known as the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road...
The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. However, most biodiversity advocates seem to care only about "the cute organisms"; that is, a few particular animals and plants. But life on Earth goes well beyond a few vertebrates, trees and corals...
Uncovering beauty in proteins to fight the pneumococcal fratricides
This post is about pneumonia and pneumococci, fratricide at the cellular level, and a pretty protein. And there's a video too! But first things first. Pneumonia is a common disease characterized by inflammation of the lungs that can be deadly: 4 million people in the world die from it every year...
Microbial Astronauts
Do you want to increase your productivity? Buy a ticket for the next spaceflight! It may work... if you are a microbe with the ability to produce an interesting metabolite, such as an antifungal agent. The treatment involves some kind of unknown mutations, but that's OK as long as you become a better producer with a stable behavior...
Women scientists, sixty years ago
New York City, 1949. During the last three years, Elizabeth Hazen had been isolating hundreds of microbes from dirt samples taken at different locations. Many microbiologists at the time were following a path open by Alexander Fleming, Selman Waksman and others...
Some actinomycetes are known for establishing symbioses with other organisms. A typical example is the formation of nodules on the roots of certain plants by soil bacteria of the genus Frankia. Although these microbes can also be found as free forms in the soil...
Mitochondria and chloroplasts are the remains of bacteria that established intimate associations with eukaryote ancestors. You may think: a bacterium became an endosymbiont, then degenerated, and voilà, turned into an organelle. But that's an oversimplification. A full story should include an active participation of the host, some horizontal gene transfer from different microbial sources and, most likely, the involvement of other endosymbiotic partners that became extinct long time ago...
Antibiotics and viruses: a natural alliance?
At the right concentration, an antibiotic may be effective enough to kill a microbe, or at least to stop its growth. But lower antibiotic concentrations may have subtler effects on microorganisms...
The so-called neglected diseases comprise a number of parasitic and bacterial infections which are the most common afflictions of humankind. So, how can these diseases be "neglected"? When you get sick, you don't ignore your illness, do you? But we all can ignore a disease... as long as we ourselves don't suffer it...
Lucky me, I am enjoying a few weeks with my partner in Geneva, Switzerland. During one of our first walks around the city, we noticed a big purple balloon on a small island in the Rhone river. Once we got closer, we realized that this was no balloon -- but a giant cell nucleus...
A voyage from molecular genetics to microbial ecology -- includes a fish tank and some cartoons
I found a nice article entitled Biofilms in lab and nature: a molecular geneticist’s voyage to microbial ecology. The author gives an entertaining account of the path that lead him to the study of biofilms -- that is, aggregations of microbes growing on solid substrates. He also highlights some of his recent research on the ecology of microbial islands...
Thanks to the internet, I could peek into the meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, recently held in California, from the comfort of my home at London, UK. This was possible because some of the meeting attendees posted comments on Twitter, in real time, and also because the meeting organizers made a live video broadcast...
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