Talmudic Question #69
by Ramy Aziz
Is there anything microbes cannot do?
Other Posts
Talmudic Question #120
Why are there no known prokaryotic retroviruses?
Where Mathematicians & Biologists Meet
by Joe Mahaffy — Mathematics and Biology have a long history together. It goes back to early studies on epidemiology (such as John Snow's on cholera and the Broad Street pump), and includes Ross's quantitative studies that show how malaria can be controlled by careful analysis of data. And, of course, there are many…
The Colors of the Microbial Rainbow
by Gemma Reguera — Our appreciation of the colors of nature is limited by the narrow wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can detect. This portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 390 and 750 nm is what we refer to as the visible (vis) light or, simply, light. We cannot see below…
Bridges Across the Periplasmic Moat
by Merry Youle — Gram-negative bacteria pose a particular challenge to any enterprising phage. First the phage is met by the outer membrane (OM) – a barrier to surmount that also can be used as a convenient handgrip for adsorption. Next hazard is the nuclease-infested periplasm with its jungle of peptidoglycan. An infecting phage genome…
Why Medical Microbiology Is Not..
...Like Stamp Collecting by Elio — I started teaching microbiology to medical students in 1958, at a time when biomedical science was in its full ascendancy. Grant money was there practically for the asking, jobs were plentiful, universities and their medical schools were frenetically building up their science base. Not entirely surprising, the general feeling of young…
Tit-for-Tat: A Bacterial Counterattack System
by Spencer Scott & John De Friel — Microbial ecology may be a young field but it is well understood already that there is a broad spectrum of interactions between bacterial species, ranging from cooperative to competitive. In a recent paper researchers from John Mekalanos' lab further characterized a recently discovered mechanism for inter-cell communication. This system, called…
I'll lob a grenade...
Use arsenic in their DNA
Sing.
Fly under their own power? (Yes, I know they are passively blown around, but that doesn't count as "flying")
Tango. Cook. Skate. Vote.
tango = tumbling motility
cook = metabolism
skate = gliding motility
vote = quorum sensing
sing = bacteria do make noise (to my ears some human music = noise)
fly = blown away counts
lob grenades = secretion of toxins
write blogs about humans = 🙂
I'd believe bacteria can do pretty much anything — except, that is, use arsenate instead of PO4. Although I'd love to see "arsenophages"...B-)
...and Questions 67 and 68 were Chicago Transit Authority, 1968 or thereabouts? B-)
Digest the plastics we use.
Open a can.
Mitosis... in the case of prokaryotes. That is a beautifil biological phenomenon and they cann't do it.
Although they have invented the flagellum... they can not move on wheels because they still have not invented the roads. And after 3 billion years it is possible that they never will. This is maybe because of selfish evolution.