In the Company of Microbes. Moselio Schaechter
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Keeling University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Richard Losick Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Phoebe Lostroh Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO
Mark Lyte School of Pharmacy, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Amarillo, TX
Joe Mahaffy San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Mark Martin University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA
Jeff F. Miller University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Nanne Nanninga Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fred Neidhardt University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI
Maureen O’Malley University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Mercé Piqueras Freelance science writer and science editor, Barcelona, Spain
Vincent Racaniello Columbia University, New York, NY
Shmuel Razin Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel
Gemma Reguera Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Elio Schaechter University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, and San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Claudio Schazzocchio Imperial College London, London, England
Jan Spitzer Mallard Creek Polymers, Charlotte, NC
William C. Summers Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Amy Cheng Vollmer Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
Christoph Weigel Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft, Berlin
Conrad Woldringh Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Charles Yanofsky Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Introduction
Sometime early during 2006, ASM staff members and I began discussing ways to expand the society’s communications efforts into a new area. We wanted to take better advantage of available electronic means for reaching ASM members and interested members of the public with information about microbiology. One opportunity was for ASM to launch a blog. However, blogging raised eyebrows in some circles, including the attorneys who are asked to review proposed programs of this sort. Being good lawyers, they mentioned liability issues, worrying that such an informal vehicle for communicating might prove too free-wheeling if not handled properly. Without a candidate blogger in mind, we pondered where to go next.
Meanwhile, Elio Schaechter contacted me out of the blue, saying that, in retirement, he was seeking a new project and wondered whether ASM might be interested in supporting a blog on microbiology. Instantly, our concerns over blogging liabilities vanished. Here was an eminent microbiologist and former president of ASM who was respected across the broad community of microbiologists. Don’t worry, he assured us, the nooks and crannies of microbiology can provide plenty of rich material for the blog and, while it might touch on controversy, any forthcoming debates will be strictly Talmudic—(The Talmud is a combination of texts explaining the meaning of events or practices appearing in the old Testament)—not damaging to any institution or person, apart perhaps from those with especially fragile egos.
By then ASM had begun producing podcasts, and the blog that Elio conceived of doing fell under that umbrella—or, rather, onto that platform. Elio was introduced to Chris Condayan, a public communications manager at ASM, who says that Schaechter quickly proved to be a “sharp tech,” meaning he soon mastered the virtual mechanics as well as the art of the blogging process. From the outset, Elio issued blog posts regularly, typically posting two items each week. He also very much molded its content, mining gems excavated from the broad expanse of the microbiological sciences.
To begin with, Small Things Considered was purely Elio’s output, but eventually he attracted other writers and microbiologists to join him in this novel communications enterprise. The first additional steady contributor was Merry Youle, a technical writer, who approached him as an interested reader. For several years she helped to edit the postings before she began to write some of them herself. Later, several microbiologists were brought on board to broaden the scope of the blog postings but also to give Elio some hands-on help.
There was a flurry of interest after the first few postings during the second half of 2006, which subsided for a while before it gradually but steadily began building into a huge success. Over the past decade, Elio and his band of bloggers posted more than 1,000 items on Small Things Considered, and those postings by now have attracted more than 2 million page views at an average of more than 600 views per day, and elicited more than 2,300 comments. Along with traditional postings, the blog now includes a Teachers Corner that caters to classroom needs. Among microbiologists, the blog is well known and much liked, but it also attracts plenty of readers outside the discipline. Further, it is so well respected that the Library of Congress has identified Small Things Considered as one of the first blogs in the sciences worth archiving.
The blog could only have been conceived by Elio. His store of knowledge about the science of microbiology is unequalled. He is also an unusually articulate writer and has a unique and welcoming approach to the content.
The 70 articles are divided into seven sections entitled: “The View from Here,” “Accounts of the Past,” “Small Wonders,” “On Being a Microbiologist,” “Personal Notes,” “The Ways of Microbes,” and “Teaching Things”
The authors, in addition to Elio, are presidents of ASM and a slew of distinguished microbiologists from all around the globe. The topics are as varied as the authors, ranging from, “Where Mathematicians and Biologists Meet” to “Bacterial Hopanoids: The Lipids That Last Forever.”
This is more than just a collection of articles: it is a treasure chest of wise, amusing, and even profound statements about the ubiquity and relevance of the microbial world. As Elio notes in his introduction, “The purpose of this blog is to share my appreciation for the width and depth of the microbial activities on this planet. I will emphasize the unusual and the unexpected phenomena for which I have a special fascination.”
Michael Goldberg, PhD
Executive Director Emeritus, ASM
Jeff Fox PhD
Current Topics and Feature Editor, Microbe
Preface
Blog Years Are Like Dog Years
How did Small Things Considered come about? When I retired from Tufts University some twenty years ago, I realized that for too long I had lived comfortably within the focused world of E. coli and its ilk. Out there, far from the lab bench, amazing and unexpected things were happening, and I was only dimly aware of some. A few of them danced in my imagination; many were just out of sight. So, I started to pay more attention to these groovy stories.
My itch of writing egged me on to look for a way to share my pleasure of exploration with others. There weren’t many venues for such endeavors then, but someone whispered blog in my ear. I barely knew how to spell it, leave alone what it was, so I called Michael Goldberg, the then Executive Director of the the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), who encouraged me and put me in touch with Chris Condayan, who knew a lot about such things. Not only did Michael explain this enigmatic word to me, but he also told me that they had been talking about an ASM-sponsored blog, and, yes, if I were willing to do this, they would help me out. Chris set me up by designing the lay-out, plugging me into the proper software, and even coming up with a happy name for the blog. As an aside, when I was once interviewed on the NPR radio program All Things