Owner: Twisted Bacteria URL:http://twistedbacteria.blogspot.com Join Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:04:13 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A science blog. Microbiology, with an emphasis on actinomycetes (a group of bacteria) and the biosynthesis of natural products of pharmaceutical interest. Site statistics:Click here
Charlton Heston 2008-04-07 11:59:42 A great actor, Charlton
Heston, died on April 5th, 2008.
Can you find the connection between Heston and actinomycetes?
Charlton Heston's image from Poletti.
Image credits for actinomycetes: CDC/Dr. David Berd (PHIL #3078), 1972. From the CDC Public Health Image Library, via Wikimedia Commons.
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Charlton Heston: the connection 2008-05-05 11:12:41 Now I am explaining the connection
between Charlton
Heston and actinomycetes. It is indeed a very simple link, as you will see.
As a boy, Charlton Heston was not Charlton Heston —not yet— but John Charles Heston and, under this name, he attended New Trier High School at Winnetka, a northern suburb of Chicago. There he might have met some students who later became famous, such as actor Rock Hudson (then still known as Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. [*]) and Nobel laureate Jack Steinberg (a physicist, donated his Nobel medal to New Trier High School). However, perhaps the three boys never met,...
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Big bacteria with lots of DNA 2008-05-09 07:24:06 Size matters.
That's why there are no insects as big as horses [*], or bacteria as large as to be seen without the use of a microscope. Well, actually, the latter is not true —although a typical bacterial cell is not longer than 5 micrometers, a few species such as Thiomargarita namibiensis (left image) and Epulopiscium fishelsoni may reach a length of over 0.5 millimeters (500 micrometers); enough to become visible to the naked eye.
Big bacteria enjoy some advantages; for instance, they can not be swallowed by most predators (such as ciliates) that feed on smaller cells. But they also...
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Neglected diseases in the news 2008-05-14 11:55:38 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.
Neglected diseases are especially endemic in low-income populations in developing
To sporulate or not to sporulate 2008-05-20 07:09:59 When nutrients are scarce, Bacillus subtilis cells are able to form highly resistant endospores. However, even in a clonal population, only some cells engage in the sporulation process. This is explained in terms of a bet-hedging strategy: a mixed population composed of both vegetative cells and spores is prepared for a variety of unknown future environments. But how does an individual cell determ
Paul Ewald: Can we domesticate germs? 2008-05-20 06:22:24 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a group of conferences that "brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)." The following video corresponds to a talk by Paul Ewald, director of the program in Evolutionary Medicine at the Biology Department of the University of Louisville; he has written popular news a
Immune Atack, a video game 2008-05-26 14:08:22 From the official Immune
Attack website:
"The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) presents Immune Attack™, an educational video
game that introduces basic concepts of human immunology to high school and entry-level college students. Designed as a supplemental learning tool, Immune Attack aims to excite students about the subject, while also illuminating general principles and detailed concep
EcoliHub: all together now 2008-05-29 06:04:20 EcoliHub is a website sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, trying to bring together
researchers interested in Escherichia coli with the most up-to-date information and data. From the EcoliHub site:
Sixty years of study have made Escherichia coli the most deeply understood organism at the molecular level. Much of what we know about cellular processes can be traced to fundamental dis
Merck halts natural products research 2008-05-30 13:00:00 Bad news: Merck
has decided to close down its natural product research facilities. This means the end of CIBE (Centro de Investigación Básica de España) — or Spanish Center for Biological Research — located in Madrid, Spain. Since its creation in 1954, this center has been dedicated to the discovery of new compounds of therapeutical potential produced by microbes. These efforts led to the d
Martian microbes: remember we are friends 2008-06-03 06:01:29 I have always been a huge fan of life at the cellular level...
(Hat tip: The Tree of Life)
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Read more:Martian
A cell potpourri: eukaryotes and their organelles 2008-06-18 03:48:12 According to the endosymbiotic theory, eukaryotic organelles (mitochondria, chloroplasts) are the remains of certain bacteria that established intimate associations with eukaryote ancestors. This theory is widely supported by biochemical, genetic and proteomic evidences. A take-home message may be: a bacterium became an endosymbiont, then degenerated, and voilà, turned into an organelle. But that
An 'open source' approach to drug discovery 2008-07-01 09:56:09 Why should we worry about intellectual property protection for infectious diseases and diseases of the poor? Why can't we share our ideas and brains to create an open source
platform for drugs for these diseases in the same way that the human genome has been sequenced and the Internet developed?These are some questions posed by geneticist Samir Brahmachari in an interview published at SciDev.net.
Why don't plants have any chlamydial symbionts? 2008-06-30 09:49:24 It seems that all known chlamydiae are obligate intracellular symbionts -- they can only reproduce inside eukaryotic cells, and remain metabolically inactive outside of their hosts (a virus-like lifestyle). Chlamydiae can infect different kinds of animals (mammals, birds, fishes, arthropods, crustaceans) and unicellular eukaryotes (such as environmental amoebae). Remarkably, chlamydiae have never
Relaxing at the microscope 2008-06-28 09:50:54 A video from YouTube (Microorganism Spacial Journey) showing microscopic images of microbes and other tiny beasts, accompanied by a very relaxing music.
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A new way to make polyketides 2008-07-08 11:08:10 Polyketides are a class of natural products isolated from microbes, plants and invertebrates which includes an impressive number of clinically effective drugs with diverse activities. To name a few examples: erythromycin (antibiotic), rapamycin (immunosuppressive), amphotericin (antifungal), avermectin (antiparasitic), and doxorubicin (anticancer). As other natural products do, polyketides may pla
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