by Elio — Certain large underground caverns owe their majesty to the biochemical action of tiny bacteria. In many parts of the world, caverns are formed by the dissolution of calcium carbonate deposits by sulfuric acid (this is known in the trade as "sulfuric acid speleogenesis"). Such microbial mining formed the...
Why are no bacterial pathogens known to use a Bdellovibrio-type of mechanism to penetrate into eukaryotic cells?
by Elio — Creatures living at the bottom of the sea get much of their food from those that lived above and died. This biological detritus slowly descends to the sea floor. In the language of the trade, "pelagic organisms are a trophic resource for benthic ones" Marine scientists Dell'Anno and Danovaro...
by Elio — I just love it when two fascinating topics cross paths. Two that I have in mind now are bioluminescence and photoreactivation. Bioluminescence is an old phenomenon, first recognized when humans first encountered fireflies...
Why have nitrogen-fixing bacterial endosymbionts of plants not evolved into organelles ("azoplasts")?
Where on Earth would one expect to find a single species of microbes (a pure culture) for sustained periods of time?
