The survival strategy of microorganisms in changing environments has been a crucial focus of biological research. Understanding how bacteria adjust their growth rates and adaptability amidst resource competition and environmental pressures is not only pertinent to microbial ecology and evolutionary biology but also holds significant implications for fields such as medicine, environmental science, and bioengineering. Basan’s team’s research delves into how microbes like E. coli modulate their physiological responses to changes in carbon sources, unveiling a fundamental trade-off between growth rate and physiological adaptation. (Basan et al., 2020)