No­table Pa­pers in 2017 – a Fol­low-up

by Elio

Over a week ago we posted the re­sponses to our query about a no­table pa­per that ap­peared in 2017. A num­ber of friends and col­leagues re­sponded with alacrity. The re­sponses were re­mar­kab­ly var­ied and in­cluded re­search in widely dis­parate branches of mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. Whereas many of the re­sponses were from peo­ple re­sid­ing abroad, this breadth of in­ter­ests is surely uni­ver­sal.

Scav­eng­ing of at­mos­pheric H₂ and CO by Ere­mio­­bac­teraeota and Dormibac­ter­aeota. Source

Let us agree that the field of mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy is ex­tremely va­ried in scope and that the in­ter­ests of its prac­ti­tion­ers re­flect this breath. At­test­ing to that is that only one of the ar­ti­cles rec­om­mended was also been cov­ered in our blog, the one on the 'phage nu­cleus'. This was the only piece of work that had been cho­sen by two of our cor­res­pon­dents. Not sur­pris­ing, as this find­ing shakes the foun­da­tion of what we think a nu­cleus is.

Want me to choose a fa­vorite of my own? I would opt for the re­port that bac­te­ria in Antarc­tic deserts get their and en­ergy from rare at­mos­pheric gases, such as hy­dro­gen or car­bon monox­ide (cov­ered here). I think this de­fies any com­mon discern­ment of what bac­te­ria (or for that mat­ter any liv­ing thing) can do. I would never have guessed that. But then, I would not have guessed at the rest of the sub­mis­sions ei­ther.