A while ago, I wrote a couple of posts describing some intra-molecular forces, forces that hold atoms and molecules together. I enjoyed writing them, and people come back to read them quite frequently, so I thought I’d continue and write about a couple more. The previous posts covered van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonds (and dipoles!) [...]

I have a soft-spot for plant biology. In my final year at university, having exhausted all of the bacteria-related biochemistry lectures, I took a bacteria-related lecture course with the plants department. It was a smaller department, and seemed a lot friendlier and nicer. Also the biscuits in the tea-room were cheaper. So I do like to write about [...]

Just to let you know – the latest MolBio carnival is out! The bacteria that cause Tuberculosis are nasty little beasts. The white blood cells that clear infection in your body work by ingesting bacteria and then breaking them up, and the TB escapes this by letting itself get ingested and then sitting inside your [...]

I’ve written before about the many ways that bacteria can move around. Considering that they’re just one cell long, micro-organisms have a whole range of ways to travel through their little world. Movement is useful for finding food and for changing your environment when all nearby resources have been exhausted. For bacteria that can’t move, however, [...]

I’m safely back from my honeymoon, and I was catching up on the Scientific American articles when I found one that quite disturbed me. I don’t usually use this blog as a forum for thoughts about things that aren’t bacteria, but this is something I found important, particularly as I’ve spent most of the holiday [...]

Last post of the honeymoon! I think it’s fitting that this post should be an old guest post written by my husband. He’s a psychiatrist, and this post was the only way we could think of to combine his medical knowledge with my love for little bacteria. I should also give his book a plug [...]

Still on my honeymoon, far away from any form of internet, so this is another old post from my previous blog. The post itself is not one of the best I’ve written, but the subject matter was so fascinating I feel it needed reposting! This post came to light due to Captain Skellet (whose been around [...]

I’m currently off on my seriously-delayed honeymoon, so over the next two weeks I’ll be sticking up some posts I enjoyed from my old blog. They’ve been modified and re-edited to include new information (and images!) where appropriate, but unfortunately I won’t be able to answer comments or participate in any discussion about them until [...]

I’ve been getting so exited about the awesome powers of bacteria on this blog lately that I’ve been neglecting to cover the nasty bacteria. More specifically the fascinating world of antibiotics, the antimicrobial elements that bacteria and fungi produce and that humans exploit, manufacture and synthesise in order to protect against bacterial infections. Luckily a [...]

The inside of the human body is a bacteria-free zone. Bacteria are certainly within you, but they exist only in areas that have a direct channel to the outside world, such as the mouth, intestines and the surface of the skin. These areas are well protected by a layer of cells (epithilial cells) which form [...]