• Fine Read­ing: Pre­da­tion

    by Elio — Big fish eat lit­tle fish, and so on, the ul­ti­mate "so on" be­ing the mi­crobes, which are typ­i­cally placed at the bot­tom of the food web. In the oceans, bac­te­ria are com­monly set upon by pro­tists, in soils also by ne­ma­todes and other small an­i­mals. And every­where, there lurk vir­u­lent phages…

  • Sib­lings Strike Again

    by S. Mar­vin Fried­man — Bac­te­ria ca­pa­ble of sporu­la­tion go out of their way to grow rather than sporu­late. They will there­fore try to ob­tain needed nu­tri­ents, even at the cost of killing their neigh­bors. When starved for nu­tri­ents, cells of Bacil­lus sub­tilis en­gage in can­ni­bal­ism, that is they lyse their sib­lings and...