In the Company of Microbes

Table of Contents
Contributors.................................................................................. x
Introduction................................................................................. xi
Preface..........................................................................xiii
Acknowledgments.......................................................................xv
What Do We Mean by a Talmudic Question?.........................xvi
Part 1: The View from Here
1 Of Ancient Curses, Microbes, and the ASM..................................... 3
Bonnie L. Bassler
2 On the Evolution of the Genetic Code............................................. 6
Charles Yanofsky
3 Microbes Touch Everything.............................................................. 8
Tim Donohue
4 Getting a Handle on Cell Organization .......................................... 11
Franklin M. Harold
5 The Age of Imaging........................................................................ 16
Elio
6 Bacillus subtilis: Wild and Tame................................................... 19
Richard Losick
7 The Tyranny of Phylogeny: An Exhortation................................... 22
Elio
8 Virus in the Room.......................................................................... 24
Welkin Johnson
9 Feynman Said “Just Look at the Thing!”........................................ 27
Jan Spitzer
10 Self-Assembly For Me..................................................................... 34
Elio
11 On the Definition of Prokaryotes................................................... 37
Nanne Nanninga
12 The Microbial Nature of Humans................................................... 42
Maureen O’Malley
13 Good Writing Beats Bad Writing, Most Any Day ........................... 47
Elio
14 Finally, Farewell to “Stamp Collecting”.......................................... 52
Christoph Weigel
Part 2: Accounts of the Past
15 Esther Lederberg: Pioneer of Bacterial Genetics ......................... 59
Mercé Piqueras
16 How Proteomics Got Started ......................................................... 66
Fred Neidhardt
17 Did van Leeuwenhoek Observe Yeast Cells in 1680? ................... 72
Nanne Nanninga
18 The Louse and the Vaccine ........................................................... 76
Elio
19 The Ten-Minute Leeuwenhoek Microscope .................................. 80
Patrick Keeling
20 Microbiology in the Andes: Ancient and Unexpected .................. 84
Elio
21 Dr. Rous’s Prize-Winning Chicken ................................................. 87
Welkin Johnson
22 The Two Quantitative Steps in the Biology Growth Curve .................................... 90
Elio
23 A Tale of Centenarians ................................................................. 93
Claudio Schazzocchio
24 A Failed Experiment ..................................................................... 99
Elio
25 “Microbe Hunters” by Paul DeKruif:
A Major Force in Microbiological History .....................................104
Elio
26 Fecal Transplants in the “Good Old Days” ...................................106
Stanley Falkow
27 Requiem for a Machine ............................................................... 110
Elio
28 Mad Dogs and Microbiologists ..................................................... 113
William C. Summers
29 Joshua Lederberg and the “Cellularity” of Bacteria .................... 118
Elio
Part 3: Small Wonders
30 Where Art Thou, O Nucleoid? ..................................................... 123
Conrad Woldringh
31 Teaching E. coli to Endocytose .................................................... 126
Elio
32 The Awesomest Thing in Biology ................................................ 130
Elio
33 Let’s Not Forget Acetabularia ...................................................... 134
Elio
34 The Fastest Flights in Nature........................................................ 139
Elio
35 Fungal Alchemy: Using Radiation as a Source of Energy.............141
Elio
36 Arms and the Fungus................................................................... 143
Elio
37 Bacterial Hopanoids: The Lipids That Last Forever..................... 146
Elio
38 A Bacterium Learns Long Division............................................... 150
Nanne Nanninga
39 Commuting to Work.................................................................. 153
Elio
Part 4: On Being a Microbiologist
40 Directed Science, Curiosity-Driven Science, and Striking the Balanc..................... 159
Jeff F. Miller
41 The Gender Bias of Science Faculty............................................. 163
Vincent Racaniello
42 The Excitement of Clinical Microbiology..................................... 166
Elio
43 The Bacterial Chromosome:
A Physical Biologist’s Apology. A Perspective...............................171
Suckjoon Jun
44 Whose Planet Is It Anyway?......................................................... 177
Elio
45 If Microbes Could Tweet................................................................181
Daniel P. Haeusser
46 State Microbes.............................................................................. 183
Elio
47 Recalling the Good in the Good Old Days .................................. 187
Elio
48 The Attendee’s Guide to Scientific Meetings............................... 189
Julian Davies
Part 5: Personal Notes
49 The Encyclopedia and I................................................................ 195
Elio
50 The Guild....................................................................... 198
Elio
51 The Magasanik Paradox................................................................ 200
Elio
Part 6: The Ways of Microbes
52 The Parvome................................................................................. 205
Julian Davies
53 The World Is Pleiotropic............................................................... 208
Elio
54 Constructing a Synthetic Mycoplasma.......................................... 211
Shmuel Razin
55 By Chance and Necessity:The Role of the Cytoskeleton in the Genesis of Eukaryotes.........214
Daniel P. Haeusser
56 The Gram Stain: Its Persistence and Its Quirks.............................221
Elio
57 On the Continuity of Biological Membranes............................... 226
Franklin M. Harold
58 Energetics of the Eukaryotic Edge............................................... 223
Franklin M. Harold
59 The Road to Microbial Endocrinology ......................................... 238
Mark Lyte
60 Begetting the Eukarya: An Unexpected Light.............................. 244
Franklin M. Harold
61 The Higgs Boson and Biology....................................................... 253
Elio
62 The Power of Fungal Genetics:
Cassava for Food Security and Sustainability in Colombia......... 257
Chris Condaya
Peter Geoghan
63 Why Is It So Hard to Make an HIV Vaccine?................................. 259
John Coffin
64 Measuring Up............................................................................... 263
Jamie Henzy
Part 7: Teaching Things
65 On Teaching ................................................................................ 267
Stanley Falkow
66 Hello Again, Metabolism!..............................................................271
Amy Cheng Vollmer
67 Why Medical Microbiology Is Not Like Stamp Collecting............. 273
Elio
68 Where Mathematicians and Biologists Meet................................ 278
Joe Mahaffy
69 Short Courses for Long-Term Learning........................................ 282
Phoebe Lostroh
70 Preaching to a Prokaryotic Choir................................................. 284
Mark Martin
71 “The Great Plate Count Anomaly” That Is No More.................... 288
Gemma Reguera
Talmudic Question #73.........................................................................291
List of Contributors to Small Things Considered ................................ 292
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