To study bacteria without growing bacteria

It is a well known fact: Bacteria are very diverse and adapted to a very specific niche. If that niche disappears some bacteria will adapt and a new niche will be found and exploited. There are only so many bacteria that can be studied in the lab and often these studies can be flawed because one cannot replicate the conditions under which the bacteria normally strive....and then comes metagenomics.

Metagenomics is the study of gene expression and genome organization in a specific environmental condition. This is quite useful when studying microorganisms that live in extreme conditions impossible to fully replicate in a lab setting. I found this article at the Science Daily site. It is about an article published in Nature by Philip Hugenholtz and MIT researcher Gene Tyson.

“By employing the techniques of metagenomics we can go beyond the identification of specific players to creating an inventory of the genes in that environment.”

“We find that genes occurring more frequently in a particular community seem to confer attributes beneficial for maintenance of the function of that particular ecological niche.”

I really think bacteria hold the secret of our long term survival on this planet, studying these wonderful cells will allow us to identify specific solutions to very complex problems....if we can only survive long enough as a species.

Dressing up for disease....

I have been saying that for a long time to my students including nursing and medical students. This article was publised on the New York Times website

"In 2004, a study from the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens compared the ties of 40 doctors and medical students with those of 10 security guards. It found that about half the ties worn by medical personnel were a reservoir for germs, compared with just 1 in 10 of the ties taken from the security guards. The doctors’ ties harbored several pathogens, including those that can lead to staph infections or pneumonia.

Another study at a Connecticut hospital sought to gauge the role that clothing plays in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The study found that if a worker entered a room where the patient had MRSA, the bacteria would end up on the worker’s clothes about 70 percent of the time, even if the person never actually touched the patient."

Ballistics and Mother Nature

Spores are really neat and they can be ejected from a sporangia at amazing speeds. I found this article in PLOS One...scroll down and download the videos. I really appreciate the Pilobolus one....a spore ejected like a rocket at a distance of almost 3m!

"In this study, we have used ultra-high-speed video cameras running at maximum frame rates of 250,000 fps to analyze the entire launch process in four species of fungi that grow on the dung of herbivores. For the first time we have direct measurements of launch speeds and empirical estimates of acceleration in these fungi. Launch speeds ranged from 2 to 25 m s⁻¹ and corresponding accelerations of 20,000 to 180,000 g propelled spores over distances of up to 2.5 meters."

To view the Pilobolus video you can also click HERE

It's going to be such a nice semester!!!

I have GREAT students this term, everybody seems to be prepared, eager to learn and, it seems to me, enthusiastic about the wonderful world of invisible life! Hurray....it is going to be a GREAT semester! Vive les bactéries!