De­cod­ing Mi­crobes

by Jamie Henzy

Fig­ure. Colonies of Efruok­i­jtjttpe rp­bcpe seen with trans­mitted light. Cul­ti­vated on Co­lum­bia agar with 5% de­fib­ri­nated sheep blood, 24 h in an aer­o­bic at­mos­phere, 37°C. Colonies are sur­roundend by a wide zone of beta-he­mol­y­sis. Source

Can you de­code the mi­crobes? Each list has its own en­cryp­tion scheme ¹).

Clin­i­cally com­mon bac­te­ria (bi­no­mial nomen­cla­ture):

1. Cyfcb­jtjttpe vp­brye
2. Yc­qeecbqr gjyjb­bo­jcrc
3. Efruok­i­jtjttpe rp­bcpe
4. Wrtqi­ipe ry­fo­brtqe
5. Ociqtjwrt­fcb uk­i­jbq
6. Uecpv­ja­jyre rcbpgqy­jer
7. Or­ca­juo­qipe qy­dip­cyhrc
8. Wjb­b­ciqr wp­bgvjb­d­cbq

Dis­eases as­so­ci­ated with mi­crobes:

1. zvx­ofvo
2. tafi­azu­vfi­sio
3. byighqwhqux
4. iqrfhvqjx
5. cibgvs­soiaoio
6. shfx­cvzix
7. zvqiqwisio
8. wix­cpixoio

¹) the "pub­lic key" of both cryp­tograms can be seen when click­ing here.

 

In ad­di­tion to be­ing an As­so­ciate Blog­ger for STC, Jamie is a post­doctoral re­searcher and part-time teach­ing fac­ulty at Boston Col­lege.