by Dou­glas Bartlett — What is more stir­ring than to con­tem­plate the cy­cles of mat­ter in na­ture? We sense that we wit­ness vi­tal trans­ac­tions of this planet's me­tab­o­lism, a ful­fill­ing thought. Such mat­ters speak par­tic­u­larly loudly to us mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists: not only do global fluxes con­cern the el­e­ments of life but are to a great ex­tent dri­ven by...