November 2014 – The Eighteenth Elephant

November 27, 2014December 5, 2014

Where are the star-shaped bacteria?

In my last post I wrote about the enormous bacterium Epulopiscium, and how it addresses the limitations of Brownian motion. Seeing this, Alex Small sent me a fascinating paper from a few years ago that I hadn’t seen before: “The energetics of genome complexity,” (Nick Lane and William Martin, Nature 467: 929 (2010)) [ungated PDF]. (Thanks, … Continue reading Where are the star-shaped bacteria?

November 14, 2014

Giant germs, making a mockery of physics

One of the reasons I went into Physics is the absoluteness of its claims: every proton has an electric charge; every bit of mass generates a gravitational field; and so on. One of the dizzying yet fascinating things about biology is, often, its lack of universality — nearly every statement one can make has some … Continue reading Giant germs, making a mockery of physics

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