TWiM describes a potential connection between a bacterial protein that damages DNA and human cancers, and how to synthesize antimiicrobial natural products from reconstructed bacterial genomes of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.

TWiM reveals a study showing that positive interactions among bacteria are far more common than previously thought, and how acquisition of a single gene enabled Yersinia pestis to expand the range of mammalian hosts that sustain flea-borne plague.