Biology

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Nicholas Taylor

[long_description] Bacterial motility is powered by the rotation of its filaments, or flagella. Each flagellar motor is made up of a long filament, connected to a basal body embedded in the bacterial cell envelope. Over the past fifty years, advances in electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography, together with genetic and biophysical studies, have allowed the piecing together of the motor’s organization.

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Long Thoughts

Rufin VanRullen

[short_description] Were consciousness to be updated only twice per second, as some claim, decisions would take place during an unconscious processing stage, meaning our free will might just be an illusion.

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Memories of
E. O. Wilson

Walter Tschinkel

[short_description] Wilson’s life was an astounding journey from a child collecting snakes and ants, to a top-ranking academic biologist, to one of the best-known public champions of nature. He died late in 2021.

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Parallel Histories

Raghavendra Gadagkar

[short_description] Twentieth century research into bacteriophages and sarcoma agents radically reshaped what virologists thought they knew, and laid the foundations for our current understanding of viruses.

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A Christmas Chrestomathy

The Editors

[short_description] As the year draws to a close, we are delighted to present our second annual Christmas Chrestomathy, highlighting the essays that best represent our aims, ambitions, attitudes, and even our animadversions.

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Giant Viruses and the Tree of Life

Patrick Forterre

[short_description] When the first giant virus was discovered, it was misidentified as a bacterium because it was much larger than any known virus at that time. Ever since, biologists puzzle over how to classify them.

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Reconstructing Ancestral Proteins

Chase Nelson

[short_description] As the aphorism suggests, the present is the key to the past. In the study of evolution, ancestral proteins can be inferred from modern ones. But recent work challenges just how much should be inferred.

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Mathematical Virology

Reidun Twarock

[short_description] Models of viral geometry help explain how viruses spread and evolve, and can point the way to novel antiviral solutions. Reidun Twarock shares her work on the icosahedral symmetry of virus casings.

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The Origin of Novel Genes

Richard Buggs

[short_description] A series of studies finds that novel genes do not accumulate with Darwinian gradualism in the phylogeny, but can be gained through radical overhauls. How this might be accomplished is a mystery.

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The Internal Language of Proteins

Zachary Ardern

[short_description] Could proteins share a common language across the major branches of life? A new paper investigates the arrangements of protein domains, considering them as a kind of ordered grammar.

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Life Lessons

John Hewitt

[short_description] Shoichi Kato et al. have exploited the minimalist cell architecture and mitochondrial dynamics of Cyanidioschyzon merolae to shed new light on life at its most primitive stage of endosymbiosis.

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The Cell Biology of SARS-CoV-2

Anthony Futerman

[short_description] A biochemist describes the distinct biological features of SARS-CoV-2, including its method of entering host cells, which is the critical point in the life cycle of any virus.

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